Standards Development

Scope

ISO 10110 specifies the presentation of design and functional requirements for optical elements and systems in technical drawings used for manufacture and inspection. This part of ISO 10110 provides general methods of describing surfaces providing a diffractive optical function on optical components. The subject of this standard is the presentation, description and dimensioning of diffractive surfaces in technical drawings. A diffractive surface contains diffractive structures, which are very small structures on or in the surface with a size approximately in the magnitude of the wavelength of light, which use the wave properties of the light and work with diffraction and interference. Diffractive surfaces may be also situated inside of optical assemblies. The diffractive optical function is realized by relief structures on or in the surface or by variations of the index of refraction in the coating material.

This part of ISO 10110 does not apply to diffractive surfaces with random surface texture. And it does not apply to larger structures compared to the wavelength. Examples of such larger non-diffractive structures are for instance pinholes, crosshairs for telescopes, glass scales or targets. Fresnel lenses, Fresnel mirrors and Fresnel prisms also fall in this category. Their zones are significantly bigger than the wavelength of light. Therefore they do not work diffractively and are not addressed by this standard. Also not addressed by this standard are all types of threedimensional diffractive structures: bragg gratings, volume holograms (HOE) and acousto-optical modulators. This part of ISO 10110 describes diffractive surfaces which add a diffractive optical function to classical optical surfaces, like plane, spherical, aspherical or general optical surfaces. Those surfaces are described in the corresponding other parts of ISO 10110.

This part of ISO 10110 does not address the methods to test and qualify the specifications. This part of ISO 10110 does not address tools and methods for manufacturing diffractive surfaces. Due to the large variety of diffractive optical elements for many purposes, this standard is divided in several sub clauses. Common diffractive properties and specifications will be described in this beginning of the standard. Specific properties and specifications of several basic types are described in the Annex to this standard.

The three most important basic types of diffractive structures are linear diffractive structures, concentric circular structures and computer generated holograms.

Purpose

The diffractive optical elements market is segregated on the basis of product type, type of materials, application and region. On the basis of product type, the market has been split into beam foci, beam splitter, beam shaper and others. By different types of materials, the diffractive optical elements market is parted into fused silica (SiO2), silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), high index glass, plastic, calcium fluoride (CaF2), zinc selenide (ZnSe), and others. On the basis of application, the diffractive optical elements market is segmented into medical, laser material processing, and others.

The diffractive optical elements market is highly bifurcated with various companies operating in the segment. Foremost players are currently focusing on providing cost competitive products to the customers. Some of the key players engaged in diffractive optical elements market include various manufacturers such as HOLO/OR LTD., Shimadzu Corporation JENOPTIK AG, Carl Zeiss AG, Newport Corporation, HORIBA, Ltd., Finisar Corporation (LightSmyth Technologies, Inc.), Edmund Optics Inc., Kaiser Optical Systems, Inc., Dynasil Corporation (Optometrics), SÜSS MICROTEC SE., Photop Technologies, Inc., Headwall Photonics, Inc., SILIOS Technologies, and others. Diffractive optical surfaces differ from classical, refractive optical surfaces by its physical working principle, by its micro- or nanometric surface geometry and by the production process they are typically manufactured. As a consequence there are currently only few standards dealing with this type of optical surfaces and elements. These are:

• ISO 17901-2 Optics and photonics — Holography — Part 1: Methods of measuring diffraction efficiency and associated optical characteristics of holograms

• ISO 17901-2 Optics and photonics — Holography — Part 2: Methods for measurement of hologram recording characteristics …

• ISO 15902 - Optics and photonics — Diffractive optics — Vocabulary

• ASTM E131-10 Standard Terminology Relating to Molecular Spectroscopy

However, none of these standards focusses on the preparation of drawings for diffractive optical elements. Especially with respect to an unambiguous communication between optical designer and manufacturer it is indispensable to have a drawing standard, which is compatible with other drawing standards for optical elements and systems and which describes all function-, geometry-, manufacturing- or assembling –related parameters on a technical drawing.

The value to the end-user, which is considered to be the engineers and workers in optical industry, is a uniform, clear, graphical communication format, which helps to avoid errors and miscommunication.