Diffractive Optical-Elements for Laser Processing

Holographic optical lens elements (HOES) are volume gratings in thick material such as dichromated gelatine (DCG) which suffer from the wavelength mismatch between the recording process and the practical application e.g., at laser diode wavelengths. Wavelength mismatch between recording and reconstruction is caused by the fact that the best recording materials are sensitive only in the blue region of the spectrum. The advantage of volume gratings (thickness 13pin) is the large angle of deflection of the first diffraction order with a high diffraction efficiency. An optimized recording geometry using only spherical wave fronts allows on the one hand for the elimination of one of the third order aberrations (predominantly: astigmatism) or on the other hand for the fulfillment of the Bragg condition. To optimize the properties of holographic optical lens elements with one aspheric recording wave a kind of iterative procedure for the manufacturing is proposed /1,2/. Each iteration consists of three different steps (fig. 1):