Abstract

Despite the polarimetric detection in the infrared wavelengths of 8–10 µm being of great importance and broad applications, there has been limited addressing of the grating-based polarizers in this band. One of the main issues lies in the process incompatibility between the conventional nanofabrication technique and the II-VI materials such as HgCdTe, so that the direct integration of polarizers with sensors still remains a big challenge. This paper reports our recent work on optimizing the grating structures, materials, and nanofabrication processes for enhancing both the transmittance and the extinction ratio of polarizers on Si and/or ZnSe wafers, using numerical simulations for the grating design and electron beam lithography for the nanoscale pattern generation. By utilizing the finite-difference time-domain method, both the transmittance and the extinction ratio are maximized by optimizing the grating geometric dimensions and the duty cycle for two different grating materials of Al and Au for comparison. Based on the designed structures, nanofabrications of sub-wavelength gratings in both Al and Au are carried out, and the processes are compared for achieving high polarization performance. Optical characterizations of the fabricated polarizers demonstrate that both high transmittance and extinction ratio can be achieved in feasible parameters and the nano-process developed in this work.

© 2020 Optical Society of America

Study of structural effects on the polarization characteristics of subwavelength metallic gratings in short infrared wavelengths

Shuoqiu Tian, Tao Liu, Xiaohang Pan, Chengyang Mu, Wentao Yuan, and Yifang Chen
Opt. Express 30(26) 47983-47991 (2022)

Linewidth study of pixelated aluminum nanowire gratings on polarization performance

Miao Yu, Zhengxun Song, Litong Dong, Li Li, Liang Cao, Wenjun Li, Yingying Song, Li Lei, and Zuobin Wang
Appl. Opt. 59(4) 1180-1186 (2020)

Optimization study of metallic hole arrays as the multi-channel spectral filters in long-infrared wavelengths

Tao Liu, Xiaohang Pan, Bo Feng, Zongyao Yang, Yifang Chen, and Bingrui Lu
Appl. Opt. 60(13) 3830-3835 (2021)

Fabrication of an infrared wire-grid polarizer via anisotropical Si etching in KOH solution

Itsunari Yamada and Rei Yoshida
Appl. Opt. 59(18) 5570-5575 (2020)

Nanoscale dielectric grating polarizers tuned to 4.43 eV for ultraviolet polarimetry

L. Rodríguez de Marcos, O. B. Leong, T. C. Asmara, S. P. Heussler, M. B. H. Breese, and A. Rusydi
Opt. Express 28(9) 12936-12950 (2020)