Volume 3, numl)er 5 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS July 1971

HIGH-EFFICIENCY IN-LINE MULTIPLE IMAGING BY

MEANS OF MULTIPLE PHASE HOLOGRAMS

A fully transparent optical component called a multiple phase hologram is inserted into a conventional
optical imaging system. By means of this artificial hologram. which in fact is a two-dimensional phase
grating with special groove shape. instead of the normal single image a central block of equally bright
multiplied images around the optical axis is grnerntcd.

In recent years various holographic techniques multiple

phase hologram
for multiple imaging have been proposed and dis- monochromattc
II
cussed [l-5]. These techniques are based on
commonly recorded holograms of arrays of point mull,pl,ed
real ,moges
light sources. If, in reconstruction, these holo-
grams are illuminated by a single object beam,
an array of multiplied images is generated in-
stead of the array of point light sources. There
are mainly two drawbacks involved in this Fig. 1. In-line multiple imaging by means of multiple
technique: phase hologram.
(i) The multiplied images are generated off-
axis. This is often unfavourable in practice and distribution of the multiplied images, and the
leads always to aberrations in the multiplied grating can be considered as a multiple phase
images proportional to ta.n2cY[3], where cy is the hologram consisting of a two-dimensional array
off -axis angle. of small elementary holograms.
(ii) The efficiency of the system is relatively For special applications in image multiplica-
low due to the low reconstruction efficiency of tion, the brightnesses of the images have to be
the commonly recorded thin holograms. all equal, at least in a central block. Thus the
In order to overcome these difficulties, high- desired brightnesses of the diffraction orders
efficiency in-line phase-only holograms can be are given rather than the groove shape. In this
used. Fig. 1 shows the optical setup, the basic case, of course, a groove shape can be found by
part of which is a conventional optical imaging inverse Fourier transform, but in general this
system capable of imaging single objects with will result in some complex groove shape and a
the desired accuracy. Inserting a plane grating grating, which will not be very efficient and will
into the exit pupil of that system leads to multiple be too complicated to be realized in practice.
images according to the diffraction orders of the Therefore, we restrict ourselves to phase-only
grating. The brightness distribution amongst the structures, which yield high efficiencies, in
multiplied images is the same as that amongst particular to binary phase-only structures, which
the diffraction orders, which is determined by in fact have been realized yielding efficiencies in
the groove shape of the grating. In our special the range 40 - 50%.
arrangement shown in fig. 1 it is the intensity Furthermore, we restrict ourselves to struc-
of the Fourier transform of a single groove shape tures with transparency functions t(x,y) which
that determines this brightness distribution. So can be separated in the spatial coordinates
each single groove can be considered as an x and y:
elementary in-line Fourier-transform hologram,
l(x.y) -Q(x) t3(y) . (1)
the reconstruction of which yields the brightness

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In this case, the Fourier transform T(u, v) of

y) can be separated,
t (x, too,

T(u,v)= T1(u) Q(u) , (2)

where Tl(u) and T2(v) are the one-dimensional
transforms oft l(x) and t2(y), respectively. The
main computational problem, namely finding a
transparency function t (x, y) of the phase-only
form

t(x,y) = exp[-icp(x,y)l , (3) Fig. 2. Form of a binary function having values + 1 and
the Fourier transform of which yields a given - 1 only.
T(u,v), is thus reduced to the one-dimensional
problem.
17‘771772 ,
In the following, only the practically more
important binary case is described in more detail. where the “linear” efficiencies nl, 172correspond
It can be seen from (1) and (3) that in this case, to distributions tl(x), t2(y), respectively.
without essential restrictions, the transparency Fig. 3 shows some calculated binary phase-
functions t(x,y), tl(x) and t2(y) in (1) can be as- only groove shapes which, arranged in a grating,
sumed to have values + 1 or - 1 only. exhibit central blocks of equally bright diffraction
A binary function with values + 1 and - 1, e.g. orders. The diffraction orders are shown sche-
tl(x) in (l), has the form as shown in fig. 2. The matically on the right-hand side of fig. 3 where
only free parameters of this function are the also the linear efficiencies defined by (5) are
transition points xl, x2, x3, . . . . Let us assume noted.
that a single one-dimensional groove extends Just for comparison, fig. 4 shows some cal-
from x = - a to x = a having transition points at culated continuous phase-only groove shapes, the
x =x_N,X-N+l,..., X-1, xl ,..., xM, i.e.N+M corresponding diffraction orders and efficiencies.
free parameters. Then, to a certain extent, The efficiencies for the multiple phase holograms,
N+M given relations between the diffraction orders r], defined by (5), are almost a factor of 2 higher
of the corresponding grating can be maintained by than in the corresponding binary case, but the
a proper Set Of para!neterS X_N,...,XM. still unsolved problem is realizing the correspond-
For special applications, e.g. for multiple ing two-dimensional gratings.
imaging of IC-mask pattern, a central, sym- We have realized some binary multiple phase
metrical block of equally bright diffraction orders holograms which are deduced from two identical
is desired. The relations between the diffraction one-dimensional structures thus yielding a qua-
orders are then given by (in one dimension) dratic block of equally bright multiplied images.
The manufacturing process is the following: first
b1(un)12
=IW)12 = IT1(-@J2, a black-and-white mask is made containing a few
two-dimensional structures. Fig. 5 shows such an
where the un (n = 1,2, . . . , Ad)are the abscissa of original mask containing four two-dimensional
the diffraction orders in the Fourier plane. grooves derived from fig. 3d. This original pattern
We have calculated a large number of sets is then multiplied by a step-and-repeat process
x1,x2, a**,XM withx, = - x_, (symmetry) the yielding the black-and-white mask of the whole
corresponding transparency functions Q(x) of grating. From this mask binary phase gratings
which have Fourier transforms satisfying (4). are made by copying the mask on photoresist
For each M, i.e. for 2M + 1 equally bright layers on a high-quality glass base the optical
central diffraction orders of the one-dimensional thickness of the layers being & resulting in a
grating, there exist VariOUS SOhtiOnS Xl,X2,...,XM, phase shift of pi.
which, however, have different “linear” efficien- Fig. 6 shows multiplied images produced in the
cies r]l defined as optical setup of fig. 1 using a multiple phase
hologram deduced from the structure shown in
radiant flux in the equally bright central orders
81 = . (5) fig. 5 and fig. 3d. We have measured that the
total radiant flux passing the grating
15 x 15 central diffraction orders contain 41%
The corresponding efficiency ?l of the two-dimen- of the total radiant flux compared with 40% from
sional grating, i.e. the multiple phase hologram, calculation.
is given by The light illuminating the single object (fig. 1)

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I. I I .I.

I,= 65%

e.

‘I, = 69‘1.
Fig. 3. Some binary groove shapes-and corresponding diffraction patterns of gratings exhibiting 3,7,11, I5 and 19
equally bright central diffraction orders.

lj, L-85”/.

Fig. 4. Some continuous groove-shapes and diffraction patterns of corresponding phase gratings. The dotted lines
represent sinusoidal groove-shapes. The diffraction pattern of the corresponding sinusoidal phase-gratings are shown
in the upper parts of the right-hand side. By a proper choice of the phase modulation, the three central diffraction
orders can be made equally bright (?j~ = 65%). By a slight modification of the sinusoidal form, central blocks of
equally bright diffraction orders can be achieved. The solid lines represent such groove-shapes for central blocks
of 3, ‘7 and 13 equally bright orders, as shown in the lower parts of the right-hand side, exhibiting linear efficiencies
of 920/o, 94% and 96%, respectively.

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Fig. 5. Structure of a binary multiple phase hologram

exhibiting a central block of 15 x 15 multiplied images.

Fig. 7. One of the multiplied images of a single IC-mask

pattern. This image with an actual length of 3 mm was
obtained in chromium by etching.

We have made some detailed investigations

into the use of multiple phase holograms for
producing real multiplied images of IC-mask
patterns in chromium layers by etching. The
chromium plates were coated with Shipley AZ
1350 photoresist on which the multiplied images
were projected using a CRL-Argonlaser (250 mW
at the 4579 A-line). The exposure time of the
resist was about 2 minutes. Fig. 7 shows one of
the multiplied images etched in chromium.

The authors wish to thank H. G. Tietje and

M. R. J. de Bont for realizing the photomasks and
E. Klotz and C. Clausen for skilfully performing
the experiments. The work was sponsored by
Fig. 6. Central block of 15 x 15 multiplied images. the “Bundesministerium fiir Bildung und Wissen-
schaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland” under
contract number (IA 7-5939-DV 3.303).
has to be sufficiently monochromatic, since we
are utilizing diffraction and want to avoid dis-
persion, and should be spatially incoherent in
order to avoid speckles in the multiplied images. REFERENCES
For example, light from a single line of a low-
pressure mercury lamp can be used, but for [l] S. Lu, Proc. IEEE 56 (1968) 116.
real applications the light level is too low. For [Z] G.Groh, Appl.Opt. 7 (1968) 1643; 8 (1969) 967.
these applications we are therefore using laser [3] G.Groh and C. H.F.Velzel, Optik 30 (1969) 257.
[4] S. Lowenthal, A. Werts and M. Rembault, Compt.
light which is made spatially incoherent by a
Rend. Acad. Sci. (Paris) B267 (1968) 120.
rotating ground glass diffusor in front of the [5] D. L. Greenaway and J. P. Russell, Intern. Symp.
object. Applications of Holography, Besanpon (1970).

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