Optical image formation using surface relief micrographic picture elements

The fabrication of a portrait type image comprised of an array of surface relief micrographic elements has been demonstrated using electron beam lithography. The entire image consisted of an array of micrographic elements or pixels (30 × 30 μm), each containing a specific arrangement of text or graphical features. In this paper, we report on the use of a simple two element palette which corresponded to either graphic or text-based elements. These two elements have generated different levels of diffuse scattering of the incident light, thereby representing an image based on differential diffuse scattering. The macroscopic portrait image was constructed by the mapping the two micrographic elements into the corresponding positions of binary dithered pixels in the input image.