Fabrication of stretched gold island films with large optical anisotropy

Abstract

AbstractAs materials for a polarizer with a large aperture and short length, stretched gold island films with large optical anisotropy have been fabricated and their optical properties have been investigated experimentally. By embedding an island film into a glass medium and stretching the embedded film with large tension, large optical anisotropy can be achieved. When a 90‐Å thick gold island film deposited on a soda‐glass substrate and embedded in a 0.35‐μm thick pyrex glass was stretched five times with a tension of 0.23 kg/mm2 at 650°C, the resonance wavelength of the film changed from 0.54 to 0.95 μm in light polarized in the stretching direction.In light polarized in the direction perpendicular to the stretching direction, the resonance wavelength showed almost no change and was 0.53 μm. The multilayer consisting of the anisotropic island films can be used for a thin optical polarizer with a large aperture.