Fabrication of optical gratings by shrinkage of a rubber material

Ordered wavy surface structures generated by deposition of a metal thin film on a pre-stretched PDMS plate were fabricated and its potential application for optical gratings was proposed. The orientation of the generated structures was always perpendicular to the pre-stretched direction and the pitch of the structure could be adjusted ranging from 4.5 μm to 6.8 μm by controlling the strength of the pre-stretched strain and the thickness of the surface metal film. Based on these periodic structures, various optical gratings were demonstrated. With a slight modification of the fabrication scheme, gratings with different orientations can be fabricated on both sides of the PDMS plate, the double-sided gratings, could be fabricated. It is believed the current method has the potential for the fabrication of a large-scale diffractive grating at lower costs.