Orange kedem, R., Opatovski, N. orcid.org/0000-0001-6975-1804, Xiao, D. et al. (11 more authors) (2023) Near index matching enables solid diffractive optical element fabrication via additive manufacturing. Light: Science & Applications, 12 (1). 222. ISSN 2095-5545
Abstract
Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) have a wide range of applications in optics and photonics, thanks to their capability to perform complex wavefront shaping in a compact form. However, widespread applicability of DOEs is still limited, because existing fabrication methods are cumbersome and expensive. Here, we present a simple and cost-effective fabrication approach for solid, high-performance DOEs. The method is based on conjugating two nearly refractive index-matched solidifiable transparent materials. The index matching allows for extreme scaling up of the elements in the axial dimension, which enables simple fabrication of a template using commercially available 3D printing at tens-of-micrometer resolution. We demonstrated the approach by fabricating and using DOEs serving as microlens arrays, vortex plates, including for highly sensitive applications such as vector beam generation and super-resolution microscopy using MINSTED, and phase-masks for three-dimensional single-molecule localization microscopy. Beyond the advantage of making DOEs widely accessible by drastically simplifying their production, the method also overcomes difficulties faced by existing methods in fabricating highly complex elements, such as high-order vortex plates, and spectrum-encoding phase masks for microscopy.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2023. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Molecular & Nanoscale Physics |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Apr 2024 10:44 |
Last Modified: | 17 Apr 2024 10:44 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41377-023-01277-1 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41377-023-01277-1 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:207024 |