Volume 74, number 1,2 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 1 December 1989

D E S I G N O F D A M M A N N - G R A T I N G S F O R ARRAY G E N E R A T I O N

U. K R A C K H A R D T and N. S T R E I B L
Physikalisches lnstitut, Erwin-Rommel-Str. 1, 8520 Erlangen, Fed. Rep. Germany

Received 10 July 1989

Specially designed binary phase gratings ("Dammann-gratings") split an incoming wave into a regular array of similar waves
of equal intensity. The difficulties in the design procedure by nonlinear optimization increase with the size of the required array
that is with the number of diffraction orders. All possible Dammann-gratings (with phase values of 0 and n) with up to 21 equal
diffraction orders in one dimension have been designed. They are compared in terms of light efficiency, feature sizes and sensitiv-
ity to errors. A catalogue of the best designs is given.

1. Introduction ders to an array o f spots. The grating is designed thus

An array generator is an optical system, that splits
one incoming b e a m o f light into a one- or two-di-
mensional array o f " b e a m l e t s " . Applications o f such
a device include multiple imaging a n d star couplers
that are used to provide arrays o f optical or opto-
electronical devices with i l l u m i n a t i o n beams.
M a n y different approaches for constructing array
generators have been p r o p o s e d recently. They are
c o m p a r e d in ref. [ 1 ]. One o f the oldest a n d most
successful approaches is the use o f b i n a r y diffraction
gratings p r o p o s e d by D a m m a n n et al. [ 2 - 7 ] . Fig. 1
shows the principle o f the method: A diffraction
grating T splits the incoming b e a m into several dif-
fraction orders. The lens performs a Fourier-trans-
f o r m a t i o n step, thereby focusing the diffraction or-
f section 2 the theory is shortly s u m m a r i z e d . Section
Array
Grating Lens of Spots
Fig. 1. A Dammann-grating acting as a multiple beamsplitter.
that all these spots have the same intensity. In case
o f a D a m m a n n grating the transmission o f the grat-
ing is binary, i.e. it has only two values 1 and e x p ( i g ) .
A phase grating is used, because then no absorption
losses will occur. A binary structure is selected, since
it leads itself to manufacturing by lithographic tech-
niques, which are well established in micro-
electronics.
If a regular two-dimensional cartesian or hexago-
nal array is desired it is sufficient to design one-di-
mensional gratings. A two-dimensional array gen-
erator can be constructed by using two crossed one-
d i m e n s i o n a l D a m m a n n grating patterns. I f the phase
value ~ = l r , then both gratings can be incorporated
into one single binary phase c o m p o n e n t with a two-
dimensional structure. Since this is desirable in many
practical situations, we will restrict ourselves to this
case. A somewhat higher efficiency is possible, if the
phase values differ from n [ 4 ].
In this p a p e r we will outline the design procedure
for Dammann-gratings, we will give a catalogue o f
designs and we will c o m p a r e different designs in
terms o f their relevant parameters, such as the effi-
ciency, the feature size and the error sensitivity. In
3 outlines the design procedure, that was used to
produce the catalogue o f o p t i m a l designs in the ap-
pendix. The main advantage towards commonly used
procedures is shown. Section 4 studies the diffrac-

0030-4018/89/$03.50 © Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland) 31

Volume 74, number 1,2 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 1 December 1989

tion efficiency of various designs. In section 5 the
minimum feature size within the grating is dis-
cussed. This is a parameter vital for the manufac-
turing process. Section 6 relates the error in intensity
within an array to the space-bandwidth product
(number of addressable pixels) of the output device
that is used to write the grating.
2. Theory
Fig. 2 shows the general shape of a Dammann-
grating. For simplicity we set the period p of the grat-
ing to unity: p = 1. To simplify the design we fur-
thermore require the grating period to be symmetric
with respect to the origin. The transmission function
has only two values 1 and - 1, corresponding to phase
values 0 and n. Consequently, the grating is com-
pletely characterized by its N transition points x~, ...,
xN, where the phase changes occur. The transition
points are determined by the design procedure such
that an array of diffraction orders, equal in intensity
for the N transition points. Consequently a Dam-
mann grating with N transition points may have
2 N + 1 diffraction orders ( - N , ..., - 1, 0, 1..... N)
which may be specified in the design. In addition to
those there are higher diffraction orders that are out-
side of our area of interest. They produce unwanted
straylight and compromise the light efficiency.
Therefore a "good design" displays a low level of
straylight. The positive part 0~<x~ ½of the period of
the transmission function T(x) of the grating can be
written as
T ( x ) = .=o
~' ( - l ) " r e c t ( x-(x"+~-+x")/2]'~x"+
-x. / (1)
whereby r e c t ( x ) - 1 for Ixl < ½ and r e c t ( x ) - 0 for
Ixl ~ ½and Xo= 0 by definition. The negative part of
the period - ½~<x~<0 is chosen symmetrically. By
Fourier-transformation the amplitudes of the dif-
fraction orders can be calculated to be
N
t o = 2 Y'. (-1)n(xn+l-x.), (2)
n=0

- not necessarily in phase - is obtained. 1 N

Due to the symmetry requirements the positive and t,.= 5-" ( - 1 ) "
nrn .=o
the negative diffraction orders have the same value.
Hence, by requiring the first N orders to be equal in × [sin(2nmx~+ i) -sin(2nmx~) ] . (3)
intensity to the zeroth order we obtain N equations

T(x)
1+1

'
I '
I '
I II I II II II II II
I I I 1

-0.5 -x -x -x -x x x x x 0.5
4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4

Fig. 2. One period of the amplitude transmission function of a one-dimensional binary Dammann-grating.

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Volume 74, number 1,2 OPTICSCOMMUNICATIONS 1 December 1989

All amplitudes are real valued. For a perfect design
of a Dammann-grating we require Itr. I2=/spot for
Iml ~<N. In this way the amplitude of the diffraction
orders is determined, but not the sign, i.e. tm=
~ . Since the absolute phase of the diffraction or-
ders is of no concern, we may arbitrarily fix it to
+ / x / ~ t . Then, there are 2N possible sign configu-
rations for the remaining orders. As was shown in
[ 3] there is a degeneracy reducing the number of
possible sign configurations by a factor of 2: For every
already known solution a shift of the pattern by half
a period yields another solution of the design prob-
lem. Hence, there may be all in all 2N- ~ different
nontrivial solutions. These 2N- i solutions for the
Dammann gratings differ in terms of the light effi-
ciency and the minimum feature size. The light ef-
ficiency is given by the ratio of incoming light and
the light diffracted into useful orders
N n=i
r/--Itol2+2 ~ Itml 2. (4)
m=l
The minimum feature size is defined as the min-
imal distance between adjacent transition points,
6= min IX,+l-X,I , (5)
O~<n<~N
whereby the boundary between adjacent periods is
taken into account by setting Xo= 0 and X s + l __1
- ~.
3. Optimization
The practical design for a Dammann-grating starts
by selecting a certain configuration of signs for the
diffraction orders and requiring them to be equal in
amplitude to the zeroth order,
mean square deviation of the diffraction orders from
the zeroth order proved to work well in practice,
N
C ( x I ..... XN)= ~ (amtO--lm) 2 . (7)
mini
Note that usually the mean square deviation of the
intensities was employed as cost function. By using
the deviation of the amplitudes we are able to find
a unique solution for any given configuration of signs
am..... a s . Additionally the number of zeros (and also
other local minima) of the cost function is greatly
reduced, which improves the speed of convergence.
In an iterative fashion a new set of transition points
x}k+ 1) . . . . . x ~ k + l ) was determined from a previous
set x~ k) , ..., x ~ k) by moving down along the gradient
of the cost function,
OC( x ~ ) ..... x~k>)
x}k+l) ~ x } k ) - - ~
0x~k) (8)
The "damping factor" fl was determined in each step
such that the cost function became minimal. The
starting points were chosen arbitrarily. The speed of
convergence of the optimization procedure depends
on the number of transition points N. Fig. 3 shows
the computational time per iteration (arbitrary units)
as a function of N. The expense increases roughly lin-
ear (or more exactly like N 1.3). The absolute com-
puter time for the design of a grating with N = 10 was
about 30 min on a Micro Vax II computer.
We found solutions for N = 1, ..., 10 down to a
minimum feature size of 10-4; this means we ter-
2o: COMPUTINGTIME [ms]
x

tm=ffmto, forl~<m~<N, andam=+l. (6) is.

x
X

This set of N equations consists of nonlinear func- x

IO x
tions of the transition points x~, ..., xN. No analytic
procedure for its solution is known. Various tech-
x
niques for nonlinear optimization have been used to 5 x

solve eq. (6), including a Newton-Raphson tech- x

x
nique [6 ] and simulated annealing [ 7 ]. Here we
o- : " : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : ::
employ the method of steepest descent [8,9 ] which 2 4 6 8 10

NUMBEROF TRANSITIONPOINTS
is attractive due to its simplicity.
Hereby a cost function C ( x ~ ..... XN) is minimized Fig. 3. C o m p u t a t i o n a l expense per iteration increases w i t h the
in N-space with respect to the transition points. The number of transition points N, empiricallylike N m.3.

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Volume 74, number 1,2 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 1 December 1989

m i n a t e d the calculation when this limit was reached.
The reason for the t e r m i n a t i o n is practical: I f the
grating consists o f say 10 periods and if each period
is s u b d i v i d e d in units o f size 10 -4 the plotter has to
be able to address 105 positions, which is already
quite high. F o r other output devices such as an elec-
tron b e a m exposure system or laser microlithogra-
phy system (with o n e - d i m e n s i o n a l resolutions ap-
proaching 106) the calculation might be taken further.
In the a p p e n d i x the solutions with m a x i m a l effi-
ciency are listed.
4. Efficiency
The 2 N-I solutions for a D a m m a n n - g r a t i n g with
N transition points ( 2 N + 1 equal o r d e r s ) are differ-
ent in terms o f their light efficiency. Fig. 4 shows the
diffraction efficiencies for different sign configura-
tions in the range o f N = 1 to N = 10. It turns out, that
the m a x i m u m achievable efficiency o f a one-dimen-
sional grating (square m a r k e r ) is fairly i n d e p e n d e n t
from N a n d has values between 60% and 80%. Two-
d i m e n s i o n a l gratings therefore have efficiencies be-
tween 36% and 60%. A certain small increase in ef-
ficiency can be achieved by allowing a phase value
different from ~o= n as was shown in ref. [ 4 ]. It seems
that the even values for N allow slightly m o r e effi-
cient designs than the o d d values. The m i n i m u m ef-
ficiency (triangular m a r k e r s ) decreases m o n o -
tonically.
In general there is a correlation between the light
efficiency a n d the m i n i m u m feature size o f a D a m -
mann-grating: Not surprisingly, highly efficient grat-
ings tend to have small m i n i m u m feature size. This
tendency is illustrated in fig. 5 for the gratings with
N = 10. It can be u n d e r s t o o d by looking at eq. (2)
because to has the same intensity as the other 2N
wanted diffraction orders. Assuming to> 0, the terms
(x,,+l-x,,) with o d d n have to be small in order to
get a large to. Similarly another tendency might be
understood: In case o f even N the n u m b e r o f positive
terms in eq. ( 2 ) is greater than the n u m b e r o f neg-
ative ones, whereas their n u m b e r is equal for o d d N.
Thus large positive values o f to are more likely to oc-
cur for even N than for o d d N.
5. Feature size
F o r a large n u m b e r o f transition points the nec-
essary m i n i m u m feature size decreases. This seems
obvious, because high spatial frequencies are needed
to p r o v i d e the higher diffraction orders with light.
Fig. 6 illustrates this tendency. Shown are the min-
i m u m feature sizes for those gratings that are most
efficient (squares) and most inefficient (triangles).
The most inefficient gratings are in the upper range
o f the m i n i m u m feature size, which facilitates their
manufacturing. The m i n i m u m feature size scales for

1 .0-' EFFICIENCY MIN. FEATURES I Z E FOR S=lO

o.o3-'

° °.~i e •
0.8
..'. " • " :.." :'o
m m @
0.6 ,- .~.....:., .-- .

• 'I I
",
,
0.4 - ** oe - *~ ..
•
•
• ,
,
J
!
.... " "" ":";'" f~: :
0.2
_<,". : .'.._". , . . - ~
• • - , \ . ,• . . . . • ~ .
• ° • 0°,# *
0.0: : : : : : : : : : : : : : ; : I n II
2 4 6 8 1o
0 . 2 0.4 0 . 6 0 . 8 1
NUMBER OF TRANSITION POINTS EFFICIENCY

Fig. 4. Diffraction efficiency of all known solutions for N= 1 to Fig. 5. The minimum feature size 6 as a fraction of the period of
N= 10. Each data point denotes one solution. The gratings with Dammann-gratings with N= 10 is shown as a function of the dif-
maximum (minimum) efficiency are shown with square (trian- fraction efficiency. The gratings with maximum (minimum) ef-
gular) markers. ficiency are shown with square (triangular) markers.

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Volume 74, number 1,2 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 1 December 1989

o log z (MIN. FEATURESIZE) FOR N=IO --2. log 2 (MAX. INTENS. DEVIATION) FOR N=IO

-2

-4,

-6. [] ° | ;
--6
--8 -- [][] ~ 1 o 1

• [] n:
-1o.
--8

=========================================
0.5 1 I .5 2 2.5 3 10 12 14 16
log 2 (NUMBER OF TRANSITIONPOINTS) -log 2 (PIXEL SIZE)

Fig. 6. The minimum feature size ofa Dammann grating of order Fig. 7. Estimation of the error in intensity of the diffraction or-
N decreases with increasing N. Shown are curves for the most ders due to space quantization for N= 10. The gratings with max-
efficient grating (small features, square markers) and for the least imum (minimum) efficiency are shown with square (triangu-
efficient design (coarse features, triangular markers). lar) markers.

the efficient (inefficient) gratings roughly like N - 3/:

(N-3/4).
6. Space-quantization
A n o t h e r difficulty in manufacturing D a m m a n n -
gratings results from the accuracy needed in posi-
tioning the transition points. All o u t p u t devices have
a finite pixel size 8x, which ranges from 10 - 4 for
plotters, to l 0 -6 for lithographic electron or laser
b e a m writing machines. The transition points can be
positioned only to within an accuracy o f 8x.
F o r a theoretical estimation we consider one o f the
diffraction o r d e r tk. The error is e s t i m a t e d by
Atk~ ~ Otk ~x 1
n = 1 OXn
N periods that are written. The real p r o b l e m in m a n -
~ ~ I ( - 1 )n+l 4cos(2nk.x,) 8xl .
n=l
In the worst case all the cosine functions a d d up in
a constructive m a n n e r and we o b t a i n Atu < 4NSx.
The absolute value o f the a m p l i t u d e o f the diffrac-
tion o r d e r is for a correct design ]tl=
~ / ~ / / ( 2 N + 1 ). Thus we arrive at an u p p e r b o u n d for
the relative error in amplitude,
At~t< 4 N [ ( 2 N + 1 ) / 7 ] 1/2 8x
~( 5.7/x/~) Na/28x.
Fig. 7 shows the error in intensity due to space quan-
tization for a grating with N= 10 and its linear de-
pendence on 5x. The exponent 3 / 2 or N is c o m p a t -
ible with the estimation o f the m i n i m u m feature size
in fig. 6. A conclusion from our estimation is: for a
given allowable error AI/I and for a given output de-
vice with resolution 8x the size o f the gratings that
can be written is limited,
N< 6~2~x (11)
F o r an error o f m a x i m a l l y 10%, t / = 6 0 % and for a
plotter with 8 x ~ 1 0 - 4 the limit is a r o u n d Nm.x = 17;
for a lithographic output device with 8 x ~ 10-6 we
find Nm,x>360 is theoretically possible. Unless a
stepper is available for the periodic repetition, the
resolution 62: is however reduced by the n u m b e r of
(9) ufacturing D a m m a n n - g r a t i n g o f high o r d e r N seems
to be the m i n i m u m feature size, into space
quantization.
I f the o u t p u t device provides sufficiently m a n y
pixels it t u r n e d out that a subsequent o p t i m i z a t i o n
o f the quantized transition points had not much
effect.
7. Conclusion
(10)

The relative error in intensity AI/I is twice as large. A catalogue o f D a m m a n n gratings with up to

35
 OPTICS COMMUNICATIONS 1 December 1989
Volume 74, number 1,2

Table 1
J
N ~n .........

1 0.367629 66.42% 1.3× 10 -~

2 0.019304 0,367657 77.39% 1.9X 10 -2
3 0.104582 0.155223 0.377125 65.52% 5.1 × 10 -2
4 0.099750 0.159152 0.369009 0.491743 66.32% 8.3 × 10 -3
5 0.006497 0.167640 0.215973 0.287050 59.42% 6.5× 10-3
0.424112
6 0.012690 0.178617 0.189778 0.235271 70.01% 1.1 X l0 -2
0.371513 0.468108
7 0.001317 0,161904 0.219859 0.234420 65.40% 1.3× l0 -3
0.297862 0.396294 0.471380
8 0.033914 0.085013 0.208060 0.225219 67.77% 4.7× 10 -3
0.326301 0.381807 0.386448 0.462768
9 0.091626 0.095805 0.145224 0.202884 68.71% 4.1× l0 -3
0.249280 0.330181 0.424735 0.446794
0.462340
10 0.040571 0.058850 0.164916 0.217545 69.18% 6.9× 10 -3
0.285866 0.329488 0.336420 0.418581
0.472982 0.490914

N = 10 transitions was calculated. Based on these data Appendix

we conclude:
(i) A simple optimization technique for the de-
sign works well, also if amplitudes are optimized and
not the intensities (as it was done conventionally).
In this way all existing gratings can be designed
systematically.
(ii) The solutions differ greatly in efficiency. The
maximum efficiency, however, lies consistently be-
tween 60% and 80% independently of the number of
transitions n. Slightly higher efficiency is obtained
for a phase differing from ~o=n [4].
(iii) The most efficient gratings tend to have small
features. But fortunately they are not the ones that
are most susceptible to errors.
(iv) The minimum feature size decreases as the
number of transitions increases, roughly like N-3/2.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful for stimulating discus-
sions with A.W. Lohmann, J. Jahns, M.E. Price and
S. Walker.
This work was in part supported by the German
Federal Ministry of Research and Technology
(BMFT) under grant TAK 0435 A 7. The authors,
however, are solely responsible for the contents.
A catalogue of Dammann-gratings.
In the table the transition points for ten Dam-
mann-gratings are given. From the 2 ~--~pogsible so=
lutions, the most efficient (~/) one for each N was
selected. Optimization was terminated if the mini-
m u m feature size (6) fell below 10 - 4 .
References
[ 1 ] N. Streibl, Beam shaping with optical array generators,
submitted to Journal of Modern Optics (1989).
[2] H. Dammann and K. GSrtler, Optics 3 ( 1971 ) 321.
[3] H. Dammann and E. Klotz, Optica Acta 24 (1977) 505.
[4] U. Killat, G. Rabe and W. Rave, Fiber and Integrated Optics
4 (1982) 159.
[5] W.B. Veldkamp, J.R. Leger and G.J. Swanson, Optics Lett.
11 (1986) 303.
[ 6 ] J. Jahns, M.E. Prise, M.M. Downs, S.J. Walker and N. Streibl,
Dammann gratings for array generation, submitted to Opt.
Eng. (1988).
[7] J. Turunen, A. Vasara, J. Westerhotm, G. Jin and A. Salin, J.
Phys.D 21 (1988) 102.
[8] W. Tdrnig, Numerische Mathematik fiir Ingenieure und
Physiker (Springer, 1979 ).
[9] S.D. Conte and C. deBoor, Elementary numerical analysis
(McGraw-Hill, 1980).

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