Design and property study of micro-slot optics

LIGA (Lithographie Galvanoformung Abformung) as a very useful technique for fabricating devices with micro-scale structures has been reported to make the micro-pore optics (MPO) for years. Light weight is one of the advantages of MPO, making it an alternative for X-ray focusing lenses used on space telescopes. However, researchers seldom considered using the MPO in visible light region. In this article, we designed a micro-slot optics (MSO) similar to MPO and fabricated it by X-ray LIGA technique. The MSO consists of 159 concentric hollow cylinders of nickel with the slot spacings ranging from 59 to 113 µm and the focusing property of MSO is studied by simulations and experiments. Both the simulation and experiment results indicate that MSO is a useful focusing element. The MSO has one focal point when the point source is on the principal optical axis with the size of the focal point equaling to the size of the point source.