Fabrication technologies for micro-optical elements with arbitrary surfaces

We present a comparison of three different technologies for the fabrication of micro-optical elements with arbitrary surfaces. We used direct laser writing in photoresist, binary mask lithography in combination with reactive ion etching in fused silica, and High-Energy- Beam-Sensitive (HEBS) glass graytone lithography in photoresist. We analyzed the efficiencies and the deflection angles of different elements in order to quantify the performance of the different technologies. We found that higher effencies can be achieved with refractive type elements, while precise deflection angles can be obtained more easily with diffractive elements.