Silicon-based transmissive diffractive optical element

Abstract

A silicon nitride (${\mathrm{SiN}}_x$) membrane diffractive optical element (DOE) designed to exhibit beam-splitting and focusing behavior at visible wavelengths has been fabricated and tested. Since the fabrication process is based on silicon micromachining technology, the DOE is easily integrated with a laser diode chip and a photodiode chip on a silicon substrate to function as the hologram-laser-photodiode unit for use in the pickup head of a CD or DVD system. The ${\mathrm{SiN}}_x$ film is deposited with low-pressure chemical-vapor deposition and the free-standing membrane is formed by KOH etching. The transmissive DOE showed a high diffraction efficiency ($>20\%$ for a binary-phase-level element). The experimental evaluation was in good agreement with the designed and modeled predictions.

© 2003 Optical Society of America

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