Phase diffractive optical elements are at present proposed for use with infrared high power lasers, for material surface treatment applications. However, the heating of the component exposed to several kilowatts per square centimetre can be a problem for practical implementation. The deformations due to thermal expansion of a gold binary diffraction grating under high power CO2 laser exposure at 10.6 mu m are estimated by a Finite Element Method. They are compared to the geometrical tolerances obtained by a rigorous electromagnetic Fourier modal method which is used to calculate the optical performances. Several exposure parameters (duration, average laser power) and grating parameters ( period, line space ratio) are investigated. The laser exposure should be limited to a few milliseconds with a power density on the grating of 10(4)W/cm(2), so that the amplitude of the deformations does not exceed the 75 nm tolerance on the grating depth. One is thus assured that the diffraction efficiency in the first order remains superior to 38.5%. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.