Design and production of micro and nano structured super resolution diffractive optics

Super resolution optics have been developed for surpassing the resolution limit of conventional optical components. As an application of the super resolution, micro diffraction based optical devices have an important role to exceed the resolution limit of the conventional components. Photon sieves are a design of optical components based on the principle of micro-diffraction optics. In this thesis, the design and production of photon sieves are aimed by using photolithography as a micro-fabrication method. In this context, the study is grouped under two main headings. In the first step, a simulation code was developed to design the diffraction optics and to investigate the focusing properties upon the design. With the help of this code, the intensity distribution and the resolution properties which determine the optical performance of photon sieves have been investigated. According to their usage areas three different photon sieve models were designed and their properties were examined. The results of the models which can vary according to the application area of the resolution and intensity modulation are compared with the control models. Accordingly, in the highest resolution model, there was no significant decrease in the intensity despite a 10.5 % increase in the resolution. Another important result obtained is that the resolution in the other model increased by 2.7 % besides the increase in the intensity by 57 %. In the second stage of the thesis, photon sieves were produced by means of photolithography method which is a micro fabrication technique, especially with drop and wet chemical etching methods. Photon sieves are produced by using pinholes with the diameters ranging from 15 to 150 µm. During the production processes, the mask-less laser writer, a special application of the photolithography technique, was used. Both sub-production methods were optimized for the photon sieve production, and the results were discussed. The error mechanisms in the production are analyzed and eliminated.