Rapid fabrication of diffractive optical elements by excimer laser micromachining

We describe the rapid fabrication of binary, multilevel, and blazed diffractive optical elements, using a tabletop excimer laser micromachining workstation and optical surface profiler. Functional DOEs are produced in minutes to hours in polymer films. We also show that laser-machined polymer DOEs can be transferred to fused silica by reactive ion etching.