Highly efficient polarization control using subwavelength high contrast transmitarrays

We report efficient wave plates with different retardations and orientations of fast axes realized using transmitarrays composed of a periodic arrangement of amorphous silicon elliptical cylinders on glass. We show that novel polarization devices which locally rotate the polarization by different angles while preserving the wavefront can be demonstrated using such a high contrast transmitarray. We present design, fabrication and experimental characterization results for near infrared transmissive wave retarders with efficiencies in excess of 90%, and discuss the potential applications of atwill local polarization control enabled by this technology.

[1]  Andrei Faraon,et al.  Fundamental limits of ultrathin metasurfaces , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[2]  D. Fattal,et al.  Controlling the phase front of optical fiber beams using high contrast metastructures , 2014, 2014 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) - Laser Science to Photonic Applications.

[3]  Separating left- from right-circularly polarized light with a dielectric metamaterial , 2014, 2014 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) - Laser Science to Photonic Applications.

[4]  Drew A. Pommet,et al.  Artificial uniaxial and biaxial dielectrics with use of two-dimensional subwavelength binary gratings , 1994 .

[5]  Erez Hasman,et al.  Dielectric gradient metasurface optical elements , 2014, Science.

[6]  A. Arbabi,et al.  Subwavelength-thick lenses with high numerical apertures and large efficiency based on high-contrast transmitarrays , 2014, Nature Communications.

[7]  J. Valentine,et al.  Dielectric meta-reflectarray for broadband linear polarization conversion and optical vortex generation. , 2014, Nano letters.

[8]  R. Blanchard,et al.  Aberration-free ultrathin flat lenses and axicons at telecom wavelengths based on plasmonic metasurfaces. , 2012, Nano letters.

[9]  Qiaofeng Tan,et al.  Three-dimensional optical holography using a plasmonic metasurface , 2013, Nature Communications.

[10]  D. Flanders.  Submicrometer periodicity gratings as artificial anisotropic dielectrics , 1983 .

[11]  M. Berry.  The Adiabatic Phase and Pancharatnam's Phase for Polarized Light , 1987 .

[12]  Andrea Alù,et al.  Manipulating light polarization with ultrathin plasmonic metasurfaces , 2011 .

[13]  Ekmel Ozbay,et al.  Experimental realization of a high-contrast grating based broadband quarter-wave plate. , 2012, Optics express.