Fabrication and replication of volume holographic optical elements

A method for fabricating a master holographic optical element (HOE), comprising:

• positioning a first face of a prism at a distance from an aperture;
• forming a reference beam coupling element in a master HOE in optical contact with a second face of the prism by illuminating the master HOE with a conjugate reference beam passed through the aperture, the first face of the prism, and the second face of the prism, and with a separate master reference beam initially incident on a third prism face and internally reflected to be incident on the master HOE through the second prism face;
• and
• forming an object beam coupling element, at a location different from that of the reference coupling element, in the master HOE in optical contact with the second face of the prism by illuminating the master HOE with a conjugate object beam passed through the aperture, the first face of the prism, and the second face of the prism, and with the separate master reference beam initially incident on a third prism face and internally reflected to be incident on the master HOE through the second prism face, wherein a master HOE comprising a directly encoded aperture function is provided, wherein forming the conjugate reference and conjugate object beams used in forming the master HOE coupling elements comprises modifying the light to match the aperture of the prism, wherein the aperture and the distance are the same when forming the reference beam and object beam coupling elements, and wherein the reference and object beam coupling elements may be formed in any sequential order.