An apparatus for replicating diffractive optical elements by embossing a master optical element into a photopolymer material disposed on a substrate, including a fixture for retaining, aligning, and conveying radiation to the embossing sample so that the photopolymer cures under pressure. Intermediate nickel optical elements may be used in lieu of quartz optical masters. The liquid processing techniques disclosed herein allow the replication of diffractive optics on curved substrates. This additional advantage eliminates the need for a plano optical interface further reducing the element count for a given optical system.

The present invention discloses 1) a process for photopolymer replication on plastics, and 2) the scale-up step-and-repeat process in photopolymers. High fidelity optical element replication using a master optical element having submicron diffractive pattern feature sizes embossed into a UV curable photopolymer material for step-and-repeat "tiling" replication of the master optical element to create light weight, low cost, large area diffractive optical elements (LADOE). Furthermore, by using a chrome mask to eliminate ridge formation around a single diffractive optic element extremely narrow seams result, thereby increasing the optical fidelity of the resulting LADOE. Accordingly, each LADOE made according to the present invention is characterized by having minimum seam widths between patterns of discrete diffractive optic elements that introduce negligible optical distortion to a viewer.