Diffractive optical elements in glass

Abstract

Diffractive optical elements (DOE) in glass are achieved by the means of the thermal ion exchange in a substrate glass. We report about the technical advantages and limitations for the design of DOEs in respect of this new technology. A first application has been worked out for a Nd:YAG laser cutting Station. The DOE in glass Is a 1%-beam-splitter for the power monitoring of the laser. Together with a CCD camera an on-line beam analysis has been realized.