Characterization of photosensitive hybrid sol-gel glass with high-energy beam-sensitive grey-scale mask in single-step fabrication of blazed gratings

A new photosensitive negative-tone inorganic-organic hybrid SiO 2 /TiO 2 glass is investigated for fabrication of microoptical elements. The sol-gel material enjoys an advantage over the conventional photoresist-based fabrication techniques due to its single-step process without etching. The application of the high-energy beam-sensitive (HEBS) mask in the process provides a reliable and simple method for three-dimensional microoptical fabrications in a single UV exposure. The technique using the sol-gel material with the HEBS grey-scale mask has considerable potential for low-cost mass production of complex, multilevel, diffractive optical elements and microoptical structures.