A metal-mirror-based reflecting polarizing beam splitter

We theoretically investigated the design of a metal-mirror-based reflecting polarizing beam splitter (RPBS). The metal mirror is a silver slab, which is embedded in the substrate of a rectangular silica transmission grating. By using a modal analysis and rigorous coupled-wave analysis, an RPBS grating is designed for operation at 1550 nm. When it is illuminated in Littrow mounting, the transverse electric (TE) and transverse magnetic (TM) waves will be mainly reflected in the minus-first and zeroth orders, respectively. Moreover, a wideband RPBS grating is obtained by adopting the simulated annealing algorithm. The RPBS gratings exhibit high diffraction efficiencies (similar to 95%) and high extinction ratios over a certain angle and wavelength range, especially for the minus-first-order reflection. This kind of RPBS should be useful in practical optical applications.

Deep silicon grating as high-extinction-ratio polarizing beam splitter

A deep binary silicon grating as high-extinction-ratio reflective polarizing beam splitter (PBS) at the wavelength of 1550 nm is presented. The design is based on the phenomenon of total internal reflection (TIR) by using the rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA). The extinction ratio of the rectangular PBS grating can reach 2.5×105 with the optimum grating period of 397 nm and groove depth of 1.092 μm. The effciencies of TM-polarized wave in the 0th order and TE-polarized wave in the −1st order can both reach unity at the Littrow angle. Holographic recording technology and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching could be used to fabricate the silicon PBS grating.

Focusing properties of concentric piecewise cylindrical vector beam

The focusing properties of a concentric piecewise cylindrical vector beam is investigated theoretically in this paper. The beam consists of three portions with different and changeable phase retardation and polarization. Numerical simulations show that the evolution of the focal shape is very considerable by changing the radius and polarization rotation angle of each portion of the vector beam. And some interesting focal spots may occur, such as two- or three-peak focus, dark hollow focus, ring focus, and two-ring-peak focus. Corresponding gradient force patterns are also computed, and novel trap patterns, including cup shell shape trap with one trap at its each side along axis, rectangle shell shape trap with one trap at its each side, dumbbell optical trap, spherical shell optical trap, may occur, which shows that the concentric piecewise cylindrical vector beam can be used to construct controllable optical tweezers. (c) 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Beam quality improvement of laser diode array by using off-axis external cavity

A novel off-axis external cavity is designed for laser diode array to improve the beam quality. In this external cavity, a circle aperture with variable size is used as a spatial filter. The diameter of aperture is optimized to 1.2mm and the off-axis angle of external cavity is optimized at 2.6 deg. In the optimal case, the beam parameter product (BPP) of laser diode array is reduced to 121 mm. mrad from 1050 mm. mrad with external cavity optical efficiency of 81%. (C) 2007 Optical Society of America.

Layer uniformity of glancing angle deposition

Some results of an investigation on the layer thickness uniformity of glancing angle deposition are presented. A zirconia monolayer has been deposited by glancing angle deposition to analyze the layer thickness uniformity. The experimental results indicate that the thickness variation over the substrate is less than 0. 1%, which is considered as good uniformity. It is found that the non-uniformity of experimental results is larger than that of the theoretical results. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Structure and optical properties of ZnS thin films grown by glancing angle deposition

The glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique was used to deposit ZnS films by electron beam evaporation method. The cross sectional scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image illustrated a highly orientated microstructure composed of slanted column. The atomic force microscopy (APM) analysis indicated that incident flux angle had significant effects on the nodule size and surface roughness. Under identical nominal thickness, the actual thickness of the GLAD films is related to the incident flux angle. The refractive index and in-plane birefringence of the GLAD ZnS films were discussed, and the maximum bireffingence Delta n = 0.036 was obtained at incident flux angle of alpha = 80 degrees. Therefore, the glancing angle deposition technique is a promising way to create a columnar structure with enhanced birefringent property. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Structural and optical properties of nanostructured TiO2 thin films fabricated by glancing angle deposition

TiO2 films deposited by electron beam evaporation with glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique were reported. The influence of flux angle on the surface morphology and the microstructure was investigated by scanning electron microscopy. The GLAD TiO2 films are anisotropy with highly orientated nanostructure of the slanted columns. With the increase of flux angle, refractive index and packing density decrease. This is caused by the shadowing effect dominating film growth. The anisotropic structure of TiO2 films results in optical birefringence, which reaches its maximum at the flux angle alpha = 65 degrees. The maximum birefringence of GLAD TiO2 films is higher than that of common bulk materials. It is suggested that glancing angle deposition may offer an effective method to obtain tailorable refractive index and birefringence in a large continuous range. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Preparation and characterization of nanostructured ZrO2 thin films by glancing angle deposition

ZrO2 films were prepared by electron beam evaporation with glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique. The as-deposition and annealed ZrO2 films are all amorphous, different from that deposited at normal incidence. Due to the shadowing effect, a highly orientated structure composed of slanted columns formed, and the obtained films became the mixture of slanted columns and voids. The relationship among the effective refractive index, packing density and flux incident angle was investigated. The refractive index and packing density of ZrO2 films decrease with the increase of the incident angle. The in-plane birefringence of GLAD ZrO2 films was calculated. At the packing density of 0.576, the maximum birefringence is 0.037. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Structure and optical properties of Nb2O5 sculptured thin films by glancing angle deposition

Nb2O5 sculptured thin. films deposited by electron beam evaporation with glancing angle deposition were prepared. Nb2O5 sculptured thin. films with tilted columns are optical anisotropy. XRD, SEM, UV-vis-NIR spectra are employed to characterize the microstructure and optical properties. The maximum of birefringence (Delta n) is up to 0.045 at alpha = 70 degrees with packing density of 0.487. With increasing the deposition angle, refractive index and packing density of Nb2O5 STF are decreasing. The relationship among deposition parameter, microstructure and optical properties was investigated in detail. (C) 2008 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

Design of novel polarization beam splitter in two-dimensional photonic crystal

We present the design and the simulation of an ultracompact high efficiency polarization beam splitter (PBS) based on the properties of the light waves propagating in straight waveguide and composite structure photonic crystal. The splitting properties of the PBS are numerically simulated and analyzed by using the plane wave expansion (PWE) method and finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The PBS consists of three parts, namely, input waveguide, beam structure and output waveguide. It is shown that a high efficiency and a large separating angle for TE mode and TM mode can be achieved. Owing to these excellent features, including small size and high rate, the PBS makes a promising candidate in the future photonic integrated circuits.

Systematic considerations for the patterning of photonic crystal devices by electron beam lithography

Photonic crystal devices with feature sizes of a few hundred nanometers are often fabricated by electron beam lithography. The proximity effect, stitching error and resist profiles have significant influence on the pattern quality, and therefore determine the optical properties of the devices. In this paper, detailed analyses and simple solutions to these problems are presented. The proximity effect is corrected by the introduction of a compensating dose. The influence of the stitching error is alleviated by replacing the original access waveguides with taper-added waveguides, and the taper parameters are also discussed to get the optimal choice. It is demonstrated experimentally that patterns exposed with different doses have almost the same edge-profiles in the resist for the same development time, and that optimized etching conditions can improve the wall angle of the holes in the substrate remarkably. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Control of the photonic crystal waveguide over the beam profile of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers

The control of the photonic crystal waveguide over the beam profile of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers is investigated. The symmetric slab waveguide model is adopted to analyze the control parameters, of the beam profile in the photonic-crystal vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (PC-VCSEL). The filling factor (the ratio of the hole diameter to the lattice constant) and the etching depth control the divergence angle of the PC-VCSEL, and the low filling factor and the shallow etching depth are beneficial to achieve the low-divergence-angle beam. Two types of PC-VCSELs with different filling factors and etching depths are designed and fabricated. The experimental results show that the device with a lower filling factor and a shallower etching depth has a lower divergence angle, which agrees well with the theoretical predictions.

Single-mode holey vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with ultra-narrow beam divergence

We demonstrated oxide-confined 850-nm vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with a two-dimensional petal-shaped holey structure composed of several annular-sector-shaped holes. Four types of devices with different hole numbers were designed and fabricated. The measured results showed that the larger hole number was beneficial to purifying the lasing mode, and realizing the single-mode operation. The side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) exceeded 30 dB throughout the entire drive current. Mode selective loss mechanism was used to explain the single-mode characteristic. The single-mode devices possessed good beam profiles, and the lowest divergence angle was as narrow as 3.2 degrees (full width at half maximum), attributed to the graded index profile and the shallow etching in the top distributed Bragg reflector (DBR).

Description of a radially polarized Laguerre-Gauss beam beyond the paraxial approximation

Fifth-order corrected expressions for the fields of a radially polarized Laguerre-Gauss (R-TEMn1) laser beams are derived based on perturbative Lax series expansion. When the order of Laguerre polynomial is equal to zero, the corresponding beam reduces to the lowest-order radially polarized beam (R-TEM01). Simulation results show that the accuracy of the fifth-order correction for R-TEMn1 depends not only on the diffraction angle of the beam as R-TEM01 does, but also on the order of the beam. (c) 2007 Optical Society of America.

Exact description of a cylindrically symmetrical complex-argument Laguerre-Gauss beam

Based on the perturbative series representation of a complex-source-point spherical wave an expression for cylindrically symmetrical complex-argument Laguerre-Gauss beams of radial order n is derived. This description acquires the accuracy up to any order of diffraction angle, and its first three corrected terms are in accordance with those given by Seshadri [Opt. Lett. 27, 1872 (2002)] based on the virtual source method. Numerical results show that on the beam axis the number of orders of nonvanishing nonparaxial corrections is equal to n. Meanwhile a higher radial mode number n leads to a smaller convergent domain of radius. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.