Introduction

Today thin films are basic element in the number of common and also quite rare applications. They can be found in integrated circuit manufacturing industry, optics and integrated optics, telecommunications and wireless communications. Significant part of scientific and research potential of Department of General and Inorganic Chemistry is focused on changes in physical and chemical properties of amorphous chalcogenide thin films caused by photoinduced structural changes in these films. With a recent rapid development of advanced technologies as nanotechnology and in particular photonics, there is strong need for highly miniaturized microoptical elements usable for fabrication and characterization of small components. If elements with characteristic dimensions smaller than wavelength of used light can be prepared, one can expect very high efficiencies and also other interesting behavior in particular with regard to polarization and near-field diffraction. But for such small elements one will reach soon the physical limits of traditional diffractive elements materials and manufacturing methods. Advanced methods as holographic exposures, laser or e-beam lithography can break these limits, but their usage brings some fully new problems. For instance the requirements for clean-rooms, high purity chemicals and experimental equipment necessary for manufacturing and characterization of prepared diffractive elements are extremely high. Due to such high economic demands, it seems to be reasonable to solve such multidisciplinary projects in an international cooperation. The main aim of following thesis is theoretically simulate and experimentally test the possibilities and limits of mentioned advanced methods for fabrications of submicron diffractive elements. Mainly thanks to very high index of refraction, photoinduced changes and broad spectral region of transparency the used As-S materials have significant advantages, for example the depth of diffractive structures can be approximately three times lover that for common materials.