Fabrication of SiO₂Blazed Holographic Gratings by Reactive Ion-Etching

The Ar ion-etching technique, successfully employed to produce PMMA blazed holographic gratings, has not been applied to produce SiO 2 gratings, because the etching rate of SiO 2 is lower than that of AZ1350, the mask material for ion etching. In the present study a CF 4 reactive ion-etching technique using a high SiO 2 etching rate is developed to produce original SiO 2 blazed holographic gratings. The blaze angle of gratings can be controlled easily by varying the incident angle of the ion beam. This technique appears very useful for producing blazed gratings made of various materials.