Birefringent omnidirectional reflector.

Anisotropic optical coatings offer unique polarizing properties, unmatched by conventional isotropic devices. Here we demonstrate the fabrication of a birefringent omnidirectional reflector, a type of photonic crystal, which exhibits complete reflection of radiation at 1.1 microm for all incidence angles and polarizations. The thin-film device was deposited from electron-beam evaporated silicon, with refractive-index variation arising from atomic-scale porosity created with glancing-angle deposition. Birefringence was found to enhance the performance of the device compared with its isotropic counterpart by enlarging the photonic bandgap region of omnidirectional reflection.

[1]  Ovidiu Toader,et al.  Proposed Square Spiral Microfabrication Architecture for Large Three-Dimensional Photonic Band Gap Crystals , 2001, Science.

[2]  M. J. Brett,et al.  Sculptured thin films and glancing angle deposition: Growth mechanics and applications , 1997 .

[3]  E. Palik.  Handbook of Optical Constants of Solids , 1997 .

[4]  J. Joannopoulos,et al.  Omnidirectional reflection from a one-dimensional photonic crystal. , 1998, Optics letters.

[5]  E. Cojocaru.  Omnidirectional reflection from Solc-type anisotropic periodic dielectric structures. , 2000, Applied optics.

[6]  M. J. Brett,et al.  Chiral sculptured thin films , 1996, Nature.

[7]  Adolf Canillas,et al.  Effective dielectric function of mixtures of three or more materials: a numerical procedure for computations , 2000 .

[8]  Xin Wang,et al.  Enlargement of omnidirectional total reflection frequency range in one-dimensional photonic crystals by using photonic heterostructures , 2002 .

[9]  Yeonsang Park,et al.  GaAs-based near-infrared omnidirectional reflector , 2003 .

[10]  E. Cojocaru.  Omnidirectional reflection from finite periodic and Fibonacci quasi-periodic multilayers of alternating isotropic and birefringent thin films. , 2002, Applied optics.

[11]  Y. Fink,et al.  Dielectric omnidirectional visible reflector. , 2001, Optics letters.

[12]  W. Southwell.  Omnidirectional mirror design with quarter-wave dielectric stacks. , 1999, Applied optics.

[13]  Leon Abelmann,et al.  Oblique evaporation and surface diffusion , 1997 .

[14]  L. Canham,et al.  Vapor sensing using the optical properties of porous silicon Bragg mirrors , 1999 .

[15]  M. Teich,et al.  Fundamentals of Photonics , 1991 .

[16]  C. Hwangbo,et al.  Design of omnidirectional high reflectors with quarter-wave dielectric stacks for optical telecommunication bands. , 2002, Applied optics.

[17]  Cyrus Shafai,et al.  Thin films with nanometer-scale pillar microstructure , 1999 .

[18]  Winn,et al.  A dielectric omnidirectional reflector , 1998, Science.

[19]  Vijayakumar C. Venugopal,et al.  Origin and evolution of sculptured thin films , 2000 .

[20]  E. Charron,et al.  Making an omnidirectional reflector. , 2001, Applied optics.

[21]  James N. McMullin,et al.  Inhomogeneous thin film optical filters fabricated using glancing angle deposition , 1997 .

[22]  Ovidiu Toader,et al.  Square spiral photonic crystals: robust architecture for microfabrication of materials with large three-dimensional photonic band gaps. , 2002, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[23]  Qi Hong Wu,et al.  Eigenequations and Compact Algorithms for Bulk and Layered Anisotropic Optical Media , 1997 .

[24]  A. Lavrinenko,et al.  Observation of total omnidirectional reflection from a one-dimensional dielectric lattice , 1998, cond-mat/9811073.

[25]  Kate Kaminska,et al.  Vacuum evaporated porous silicon photonic interference filters. , 2003, Applied optics.

[26]  D. W. Berreman,et al.  Optics in Stratified and Anisotropic Media: 4×4-Matrix Formulation , 1972 .

[27]  M. J. Brett,et al.  Chiral nematic order in liquid crystals imposed by an engineered inorganic nanostructure , 1999, Nature.