Patent ID: 8398240

Claim:
An ophthalmic endoilluminator comprising: a light source operable to produce light; a first optical assembly coupled to the light source, the first optical assembly operable to receive and substantially collimate the light from the light source; an optical coupling element, the optical coupling element operable to receive the substantially collimated white light from the first optical assembly; an optical fiber optically coupled to the optical coupling element, the optical fiber operable to conduct the white light into an eye; and an optical grating coupled to the distal end of the optical fiber, the optical grating comprising: a surface relief grating; and an overlayer optically coupled to the surface relief grating, the optical grating operable to substantially diffract incident light into N diffraction orders, the N diffraction orders having a substantially uniform intensity, wherein N is 2 wherein; the overlayer comprises a planar specular distal surface operable to avoid distortion or aberration of N diffraction orders beams as the beams emerge from the overlayer into an ambient medium.