Publications Details
Diffractive optical elements for the production of synthetic spectra
We demonstrate that computer-generated diffractive optical elements can be used to synthesize the infrared spectra of real compounds. In particular, we describe a modified phase-retrieval algorithm that we have used to design diffractive elements of this type and we present experimental results for a diffractive optic which is capable of synthesizing the infrared spectrum of HF between 3600 cm{sup -1} and 4300 cm{sup -1}. The reflection-mode diffractive optic consists of 4096 lines, each 4.5 {mu}m wide, at 16 discrete depths relative to the substrate (from 0 to 1.2 {mu}m), and was fabricated on a silicon wafer using anisotropic reactive ion-beam etching in a four-mask-level process. We propose the use of such elements to replace reference cells in a new type of correlation spectroscopy that we call {open_quotes}holographic correlation spectroscopy.{close_quotes} Storage of a large number of diffractive elements, each producing a synthetic spectrum corresponding to a different target compound, in compact disk-like format, will allow a spectrometer of this type to rapidly determine the composition of unknown samples. Further, this approach can be used to perform correlation-based measurements of hazardous or transient species, for which conventional correlation spectroscopy is impractical.