Fabrication of surface relief gratings on transparent dielectric materials by two-beam holographic method using infrared femtosecond laser pulses

Fabrication of surface relief-type gratings in. transparent dielectrics, which are hard to machine, has been achieved by a holographic technique using two infrared femtosecond (fs) pulses from a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser. The present method can be applied for a variety of transparent dielectrics, Al2O3 (sapphire), TiO2, ZrO2, LiNbO3, SiC, ZnO, CdF2, MgO, CaF2 crystals, and SiO2 glass. It is found that the grating formation is due primarily to laser ablation processes. Planar surface relief gratings can be fabricated by colliding two fs laser pulses on the surface of substrates which move at a constant speed, synchronized with the laser repetition rate.