Construct a polarizing beam splitter by an anisotropic metamaterial slab

Abstract

We present a theoretical investigation of polarizing beam splitters based on an anisotropic metamaterial (AMM) slab. At the interface associated with a certain AMM, TE- and TM-polarized waves exhibit opposite amphoteric refraction characteristics, such that one polarized wave is positively refracted whereas the other is negatively refracted. The opposite amphoteric refractions result in a large birefringence in the AMM slab. By suitably using the large birefringence, we introduce a very simple and very efficient beam splitter to route the light. We show that the splitting angle and the splitting distance between TE- and TM-polarized beams is the function of anisotropic parameters, incident angle and slab thickness.