Diffractive optical element design techniques for high-fidelity optical interconnections and beam-shaping applications

In this paper, we review several different design techniques for the creation of diffractive optical elements (DOEs). We compare the performance speed of these disparate methods against the efficiency and fidelity of the grating output. In addition, we investigate the mechanisms behind observed deviations of the actual element output from both the desired and simulated DOE outputs. This investigation allows the relative importance of the different fabrication error mechanisms to be assessed and some conclusions regarding modification to the fabrication process to be reached.