Micromachining of amplitude and phase modulated reflective computer generated hologram patterns in silicon

Silicon has been machined on lateral resolutions of micrometers and on depth resolutions of nanometers using a recently-developed process based on ion irradiation and electrochemical anodisation. Here we investigate its use as a recording medium for computer generated hologram patterns. We describe the fabrication of both amplitude and phase binary modulated reflective computer generated hologram patterns on a silicon surface with pixel sizes of 5 μm. We further discuss the use of micromachined silicon to variably modulate both amplitude and phase in a continuous, rather than a binary fashion.