Materials Pushing the Application Limits of Wire Grid Polarizers further into the Deep Ultraviolet Spectral Range
Abstract
Wire grid polarizers (WGPs), periodic nano-optical meta-surfaces, are convenient polarizing elements for many optical applications. However, they are still inadequate in the deep ultraviolet spectral range. We show that to achieve high performance ultraviolet WGPs a material with large absolute value of the complex permittivity and extinction coefficient at the wavelength of interest has to be utilized. This requirement is compared to refractive index models considering intraband and interband absorption processes. We elucidate why the extinction ratio of metallic WGPs intrinsically humble in the deep ultraviolet, whereas wide bandgap semiconductors are superior material candidates in this spectral range. To demonstrate this, we present the design, fabrication and optical characterization of a titanium dioxide WGP. At a wavelength of 193 nm an unprecedented extinction ratio of 384 and a transmittance of 10 % is achieved.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.1607.04866,
title = {Materials Pushing the Application Limits of Wire Grid Polarizers further into the Deep Ultraviolet Spectral Range},
author = {Thomas Siefke and Stefanie Kroker and Kristin Pfeiffer and Oliver Puffky and Kay Dietrich and Daniel Franta and Ivan Ohlídal and Adriana Szeghalmi and Ernst-Bernhard Kley and Andreas Tünnermann},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1607.04866},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
21 pages, Advanced Optical Materials 2016