Characteristics of filament induced Damrriann gratings fabricated using felmtosecond laser

To establish optimal processing conditions for direct write fabrication of diffractive optical elements such as gratings, waveguides, lenses, we have investigated the effect of process parameters such as scan speed:, numerical aperture (NA) of objective lens, pulse energy on the characteristics of the filament induced inside fused silica with a femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser. The optimum process parameters were used to fabricate a number of Dammann gratings, 6 x 6 array, having different thicknesses and number of layers. The performance of these optical elements was evaluated by measuring their diffraction efficiencies. All gratings fabricated were strongly birefringent, the zero order spot with high intensity was not separated from the spot array, and the intensity distribution of 6 x 6 spot array exhibited some degree of nonuniformity. The single layer Dammann grating fabricated with a thickness of 80 mu m attained a maximum diffraction efficiency of 38.8%. Crown Copyright (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.