Miniaturisation of High-NA Objectives for Optical Recording

High-NA objectives for optical recording have received a lot of attention due to the investigation of the Blu-ray Disc system. More recently to enable optical storage in portable devices, small building height optical drives have been studied requiring miniaturised high-NA objectives. Previously reported miniaturised objectives consist of two elements and are, therefore, less suited for mass production. In this paper the design and manufacturing of a miniaturised single element high-NA objective is reported. Furthermore, with the aid of non-periodic phase structures the tolerances of the objectives can be further expanded.