Polarization Independent Wideband Reflectors and Methods for Their Manufacture

    公开(公告)号:US20170082786A1

    公开(公告)日:2017-03-23

    申请号:US15267830

    申请日:2016-09-16

    IPC分类号: G02B5/18 G02B27/42

    摘要: There is immense scientific interest in the properties of resonant thin films embroidered with periodic nanoscale features. This device class possesses considerable innovation potential. Accordingly, we report unpolarized broadband reflectors enabled by a serial arrangement of a pair of polarized subwavelength gratings. Optimized with numerical methods, the elemental gratings can be fabricated in various materials systems. Illustrative examples provided consist of a partially-etched crystalline-silicon films on a quartz substrate and amorphous silicon films on glass. The resulting reflectors exhibit extremely wide spectral reflection bands in one polarization. By arranging two such reflectors sequentially with orthogonal there results an unpolarized spectral band that exceeds those of the individual polarized bands. In the prototypes disclosed herein, there results zero-order reflectance exceeding 97% under unpolarized light incidence over a 500-nm-wide wavelength band. This wideband represents a ˜44% fractional band in the near infrared spectral band. The elemental polarization-sensitive reflectors based on one-dimensional resonant gratings have simple design, robust performance, and are straightforward to fabricate. Hence, this technology is a promising alternative to traditional multilayer thin-film reflectors especially at longer wavelengths of light where multilayer deposition may be infeasible or impractical