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Randomly distributed anti-reflective nanostructures were fabricated on both surfaces of cylindrical lenses and freeform optical elements using a plasma-assisted reactive-ion etching technique. An average spectral transmission of 98% was measured across the wavelength range from 340 to 800 nm. Mid-band full-angle directional scatter measurements show a difference of six orders of magnitude in transmission intensity between specular and off-specular angles. Measurements before and after the etching process show little to no wavefront distortion for the cylindrical lenses. The enhanced transmission optics were used as part of the dual-unit arrayed wide-field astronomical camera system tested on the Harlan J. Smith telescope at the McDonald Observatory, and their performance was contrasted with conventional thin film coated component performance. 

We report the fabrication of a binary-phase proof-of-concept astronomical diffraction grating embedded in a quartz substrate via reactive ion plasma etching. This grating operates at the first diffraction order within the 450 to 750 nm wavelength band. It features 1400-nm-deep, 188-nm-wide binary grooves at a 566-nm pitch, or 1767 lines/mm groove density, over a 25.4 × 25.4 mm2 area. A high depth-to-width ratio ( ∼ 8 ∶ 1 in this case) is one of the keys to near-theoretical diffraction efficiency being attained by the fabricated grating (94% at center wavelength and 70% at band edges) over a broad bandpass (>200 nm). This performance is also attributed to high-resolution micro-lithographic electron-beam patterning and anisotropic reactive ion etching process fabrication techniques. These types of binary gratings can potentially be high-throughput alternatives to Volume-Phase Holographic Gratings (VPHGs) for general spectroscopic applications. When scaled to appropriate sizes for astronomy, such gratings can serve as main or cross dispersion elements in low-, medium-, and high-resolution spectrographs not only in ground-based telescopes but also in those subject to challenging environmental conditions such as in space observatories.