Reactive ion beam etching of large-aperture multilayer diffraction gratings by radio frequency ion beam source

摘要

The major etching processes of a large-aperture multilayer diffraction grating, including the uniformity of the ion beam current along the major axis and the on-line measurement of the diffraction intensity distribution are described. A large-aperture ion beam etcher with radio frequency linear source has been developed to fabricate large-aperture diffractive optical elements. The length with ±5.1% uniformity of the ion beam current distribution along the major axis is 30 cm. A series of multilayer diffraction gratings were etched successfully by using this etcher with CHF_3 chemistry. Multilayer diffraction gratings on a 80 mm×150 mm BK7 substrate etched for laser systems are shown. The grating exhibits an averaged diffraction efficiency about 96% at TE polarization of 1 064 nm light viewed at Littrow angle.