Using technologies originally developed for the electronics industry, like photolithography, e- beam writing, and dry etching, good quality diffractive elements with useful physical properties can be produced directly upon a given surface. Particularly interesting are grating structures in which the macroscopic properties differ from the microscopic properties. An example of this is when the dimensions of the micro-structure of the grating are much less than the incident wavelength. In this case the properties of the material in the microstructure are `averaged over,' in effect producing a new artificial or distributed index material. In this paper we discuss our preliminary results modelling, making, and measuring several such diffractive artificial index elements for use in the far IR.