Acta Photonica Sinica, Volume. 52, Issue 12, 1205002(2023)

Polarization Extinction Ratio Characteristics of Visible Wide-angle Metal Polarization Beam Splitting Grating

Guobin SUN1, Jin ZHANG1、*, Xuesong JI1, Chi HU1, Shilei JIANG1, and Yanyan LIU2、**
Author Affiliations
  • 1School of Optoelectronic Engineering,Xi'an Technological University,Xi'an 710021,China
  • 2National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Space Security,Tianjin 300308,China
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    The polarization beam splitter is one of the essential devices in a polarized optics system, which can change the polarization characteristics of light quickly and effectively. Conventional polarizing beam splitters are expensive, bulky, structurally unstable, and sensitive to the angle of incidence, thus limiting their application in optical systems. In recent years, with the realization of micro-nanostructures on the surface of optical elements, special functions such as polarization, anti-reflection, narrow-band filtering, and diffraction enhancement of optoelectronic devices can be achieved by fabricating micro-nano-grating structures on the surface of the device's substrate material. However, most of these structures working wavelength range, incident angle tolerance, and extinction ratio are essential factors restricting their wide development and application. Therefore, to obtain a polarization beam splitter with a simple structure, easy processing, and suitable for the polarization beam splitting requirement of high extinction ratio at wide incidence angles for AR display components, this paper designs a metal polarization beam splitter grating with high extinction ratio to work in a wide range of incidence angles of visible light bands to address this problem. The metal polarization beam splitting grating principle is qualitatively analyzed using equivalent medium theory, and then effects of the period, height, beam wavelength, and incident angle on the polarization characteristics of the Al grating are numerically simulated by using rigorous coupled wave analysis theory and finite difference time domain method. The results show that when the Al grating duty cycle ratio is 1∶1, the period is 0.15 μm, the ridge height is 0.15 μm, in the 0.40~0.70 μm band and 45°±10° incident angle range, the metal polarization grating has a high transmission to TM wave and high reflection to TE wave at the 0 order diffraction order, the transmission extinction ratio is 35 dB on average, the reflection extinction ratio is 12 dB on average. Finally, the extinction ratio of the fabricated metal polarization grating is measured, which verifies the correctness of the design results. The test results show that with the change of wavelength in the range of 0.4~0.7 μm, the extinction ratio data obtained from the test are closer to the trend of the FDTD simulation data, but there is a specific difference in the size of the value. The reflective extinction ratio test result data and curve trend are consistent with the simulation results, and the transmittance extinction ratio test result curve trend is consistent with the simulation results, but the test data value is smaller than the simulation results. In short, the test results and simulation results are consistent with the curve trend, but the test results in the numerical value of the existence of certain deviations, which is mainly due to the precision of the optical power meter and the polarization extinction ratio of the polarizer, as well as the production of the grating in the structure of the existence of some defects and so on. The results are helpful for the design and produce of polarization beam splitters with high diffraction efficiency, high extinction ratio, and a wide range of incident angles in a wide band.

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    Guobin SUN, Jin ZHANG, Xuesong JI, Chi HU, Shilei JIANG, Yanyan LIU. Polarization Extinction Ratio Characteristics of Visible Wide-angle Metal Polarization Beam Splitting Grating[J]. Acta Photonica Sinica, 2023, 52(12): 1205002

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    Paper Information

    Category:

    Received: Jun. 15, 2023

    Accepted: Sep. 4, 2023

    Published Online: Feb. 19, 2024

    The Author Email: ZHANG Jin (zhangjin@xatu.edu.cn), LIU Yanyan (lyy13@126.com)

    DOI:10.3788/gzxb20235212.1205002

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