Modulation of optical intensity on curved surfaces and its application to fabricate DOEs with arbitrary profile by interference

Abstract

We demonstrate a novel method for the modulation of the optical intensity on curved surfaces (CS) by interference and apply it to fabricate diffractive optical elements (DOEs) with arbitrary profile and large area on CS. The intensity on CS is modulated accurately by two phase distributions. Both a binary pattern and a gray pattern are reconstructed numerically on the lens surfaces with big curvatures in large areas, while a binary and non-periodic pattern is produced experimentally on a lens surface with a radius of curvature in 25.8 mm. The simulations together with the experiment demonstrate the validity of the method. To our knowledge, it is the first time to present an approach for fabricating DOEs with arbitrary profile and large area on CS by interference.