Fabrication of photon sieves by laser ablation and optical properties.

In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility and performance of photon sieve diffractive optical elements fabricated via a direct laser ablation process. Pulses of 50 ns width and wavelength 1064 nm from an ytterbium fiber laser were focused to a spot diameter of approximately 35 µm. Using a galvanometric scan head writing at 100 mm/s, a 30.22 mm2 photon sieve operating at 633 nm wavelength with a focal length of 400 mm was fabricated. The optical performance of the sieve was characterized and is in strong agreement with numerical simulations, producing a focal spot size full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 45.12 ± 0.74 µm with a photon sieve minimum pinhole diameter of 62.2 µm. The total time to write the photon sieve pattern was 28 seconds as compared to many hours using photolithography methods. We also present, for the first time to our knowledge in the literature, thorough characterization of the influence of angle of incidence, temperature, and illumination wavelength on photon sieve performance. Thus, this work demonstrates the potential for a high speed, low cost fabrication method of photon sieves that is highly customizable and capable of producing sieves with low or high numerical apertures.