Analyses of New Diffraction Optics Element Design by Polymer Gratings

A new diffraction optics element (DOE) which combines semiconductor laser and polymer-based DOE processing technology into a single optoelectronic polymer device is proposed. To directly combine the VCSEL (Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser) with DOE, DOE surface profile can be integrated on the top of VCSEL utilizing polymer gratings by soft-lithography technique. Such a new kind of polymer-based DOE-VCSEL can control spatial distribution of emitting laser energy and output angle. Through the innovative development, it can be predicted that the optical loss and traveling distance in DOE system are decreased due to the shrinking the device volume by this new design.