Highly efficient diffractive beam splitters surface-structured on submicron scale are presented. Submicron relief
structures formed on the surfaces of a splitter work as an anti-reflective layer to improve the beam-splitting efficiency.
Surface structuring is conducted using deep-UV, liquid-immersion interference lithography and dry etching. Rigorously
designed structures with a period of 140 nm and a depth of 55 nm are lithographed onto fused-silica splitters. Splitting
efficiencies at 266 nm are increased by 8% to agree favorably with a theoretical value, while Fresnel reflections are
substantially reduced. Surface-structured beam splitters reported here are of great use in industrial machining
applications using high-power pulsed lasers.
Interference exposure using a deep-UV laser in combination with dry etching is instrumental in manufacturing subwavelength patterns used at visible wavelengths. For well resolved patterns, interference fringes must be held still during exposure to achieve a high fringe contrast. Two-beam interference exposure requires a lot of space and equipment to build stable optics and produce patterns on an industrial scale. On the other hand, hologram mask exposure is
theoretically far more robust in unfavorable surrounding conditions since a resist layer is placed directly beneath the
mask. To produce good-quality resist patterns by using hologram masks, two issues need to be addressed. First, light reflections occurring at interfaces between the mask, the air gap and the resist need to be reduced to secure a high uniformity of exposure intensity. Second, only two diffraction beams should be generated to make an interference field with a high fringe visibility. What mask configurations should be chosen depends on what patterns are to be made. The best answer to produce sub-100-nm patterns is using a hologram mask in Bragg geometry and filling the air gap with a
high-index liquid.
Optical elements with subwavelength structures (SWSs) may function as anti-reflection layers, wave plates, or
polarizers. In this study, the authors focus on a pair of two-beam interference lithography systems for fabricating SWS
optical elements. These systems have different optical configurations for forming the interference fields required for
exposure. The first lithography system described herein creates an interference field by splitting a laser beam with a half-mirror
and then superimposing the two resulting beams on a substrate after they propagate through free space. A resist
pattern with a period of 140 nm is formed across a 4-inch substrate using a 266-nm CW laser. The other lithography
system employs a high-density holographic grating. The two diffracted light waves (0th order and 1st order) produced by
the holographic grating generate an interference field in close proximity to the holographic grating, thus enabling a more
compact exposure system and a stable lithography process. The desired nano-pattern is obtained by exposing the resist
with the 266-nm CW laser using a 140-nm-pitched holographic grating. This research demonstrates the potential of two-beam
interference lithography as a viable process for manufacturing SWS optical elements used with the visible
spectrum.
Diffraction-free beams having a large depth of focus are of great merit in laser-based processes in which light-matter interaction is to occur in an extended region along the beam path. We have investigated two kinds of processes that use a diffraction-free beam known as a zero-order Bessel beam: 1) Laser-drilling metal films coated on a substrate to make pinholes therein using nanosecond laser pulses at 532 nm. Given an uneven surface of the substrate, the beam irradiation point, or the process point, would be displaced from a right position. By using the Bessel beams holes ~2 mm in diameter can be formed despite the displacement of ~2 mm or more. 2) Laser-exposing bulk glass to form modifications inside using femtosecond laser pulses at 800 nm. The pulses must be temporally stretched to save their energy from being used up because of multi-photon absorption. The Bessel pulses can modify through glasses ~3 mm thick in a width of <5 mm. We have developed a new set of formulas to calculate the Bessel fields, which are generated by diffractive optical elements. The elements are designed to convert a Gaussian beam efficiently into an approximate form of the zero-order Bessel beam and are fabricated on fused quartz by direct laser writing and reactive-ion etching.
A new manipulation technique using Q-Switched laser beam was developed in this research. By using which, we could trap a fine particle in the air with relatively lower laser output. In order to clarify the possibility of the application of this method in micro-machining, the assembly experiments were conducted and the experimental results showed that the three dimensional microstructure from fine particles can be realized by this technique.
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