Multiscale, multifunction diffractive structures wet etched into fused silica for high-laser damage threshold applications

We combined functionalities of two diffractive optics with almost 100x lateral and vertical scale-length difference onto a single fused-silica surface. Fine-scale (2-μm-period) gratings for beam sampling were printed in photoresist by interference lithography and transferred to the substrate by a hydrofluoric acid etch. Subsequently, 115-μm-linewidth stairstep gratings for color separation at focus were proximity printed and wet etched in a two-mask process. Line shapes of the lamellar sampling grating are remarkably preserved following etching of the much deeper color separation grating structures with this nominally isotropic etch process. Model simulations of isotropic etching of topographical features show good agreement with the measured shape evolution of the sampling grating profiles, and the simulations reveal the sensitivity of the final feature shape to its initial aspect ratio. As a rule of thumb, lamellar grating profiles can be etched approximately 0.08A-2 times their modulation depth, where A is their initial aspect ratio (height/width), before they evolve into a cusplike shape and begin to lose height. copyright 1998 Optical Society of America