Diffractive lens fabricated with mostly zeroth-order gratings

We demonstrate a spherical diffractive lens fabricated in fused quartz for use at the 632.8-nm wavelength. The lens is constructed by use of a modulated two-dimensional binary grating with a high transmitted zerothorder efficiency. Rigorous eigenmode analysis is used to correlate the desired phase modulation with the fill factor. Fabrication requires only one lithography step. Using the lens, we were able to image a focal spot with a diffraction-limited spot size (FWHM).