Using the enormous magnetic field gradients present near the surface of magnetic recording media, we assemble diffraction gratings with lines consisting entirely of self-assembled magnetic nanoparticles that are transferred to flexible polymer thin films. These nanomanufactured gratings have line spacings programmed with commercial magnetic recording and are inherently concave with radii of cur...

Volume phase transmission gratings, that have high and uniform diffraction efficiency regardless of polarization of the incident light over a broad wavelength range, have been designed and recorded. Such gratings were incorporated successfully into a novel compact configuration of a coarse wavelength division demultiplexer. Calculated and experimental results of such gratings, and a compact fou...

An achromatic interferometer was developed to produce 1200-lines/mm crossed-line photoresist gratings with a mercury arc light source. It is a compact reflection system of outstanding stability. Alignment procedures are described. The most stringent requirement, coplanar alignment of two folding gratings, was accomplished with the aid of a Twyman-Green interferometer. The grating interferometer...

For the first time to our knowledge, a detailed theoretical basis is provided for the well-known inverse-square scaling law of holographic diffraction, which states that replay diffraction efficiency eta = gamma/M2, where M is the number of gratings stored and gamma is a constant system parameter. This law is shown to hold for photopolymer recording media governed by the predictions of the nonl...

LLE Review, Volume 115 113 Introduction The OMEGA EP chirped-pulse–amplification system at LLE requires two 1.5-m large-aperture grating compressors to achieve high-energy petawatt capability.1 The current state-ofthe-art multilayer dielectric (MLD) diffraction gratings cannot meet this size requirement.2 Several institutes have explored the possibility of tiling gratings.3–6 Kessler and Cotel ...

For analyzing diffraction gratings, a new method is developed based on dividing one period of the grating into homogeneous subdomains and computing the Neumann-to-Dirichlet (NtD) maps for these subdomains by boundary integral equations. For a subdomain, the NtD operator maps the normal derivative of the wave field to the wave field on its boundary. The integral operators used in this method are...

We study the properties of reflection-type V-ridge gratings in the subwavelength domain and describe a method to realize diffractive optical elements by using such gratings as signal carriers. In particular, we utilize a coding scheme based on position modulation of a high-frequency V-ridge carrier grating. We design and demonstrate beam splitting elements using this coding scheme, electron-bea...