Fabrication of optical components by laser lithography

For the fabrication of special optical components, such as computer generated holograms, beam splitters, beam shaping elements, projection masks, microlenses and microlens-arrays, a commercial laser lithography system is employed. We give a detailed description of its principle of operation. By repeated direct laser writing and reactive ion etching multilevel surface relief gratings can be fabricated. Thus, stairstep approximations of blazed structures can be made. We discuss the capabilities and limits of this technology and show experimental results.