Synthetic infrared spectra

Abstract

We have designed, microfabricated, and characterized a diffractive optical element that reproduces the infrared spectrum of HF from 3600 to 4300 cm(-1) . The reflection-mode diffractive optic consists of 4096 lines, each 4.5mum wide, at 16 discrete depths relative to the substrate from 0 to 1.2 mum and was fabricated upon a silicon wafer by anisotropic reactive ion-beam etching in a four-mask-level process. We envisage the use of diffractive optical elements of this type as the basis for a new class of miniaturized, remote chemical sensor systems based on correlation spectroscopy.