HIGH DISPERSION DIFFRACTION GRATING INCLUDING MULTIPLE HOLOGRAPHIC OPTICAL ELEMENTS

摘要

A diffraction grating having multiple holographic optical elements (HOEs), including a Dickson grating and at least one other volume phase grating (VPG). In typical embodiments, the multi-HOE grating is implemented to provide high dispersion, at least substantially uniform diffraction efficiency and at least substantially equal diffraction efficiencies for all polarizations across a wide range of wavelengths. The refractive index modulations of the Dickson grating's volume phase medium preferably have significantly greater spatial frequency than those of each other VPG of the multi-HOE grating. Typical embodiments of the multi-HOE grating can be manufactured at low cost with sufficiently small size and high dispersion (for both S-polarized and P-polarized radiation) to be useful in Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) applications and other applications requiring high dispersion. The multi-HOE grating can be implemented as a transmissive or reflective grating.