Refractive index of nanostructured optical materials

Abstract

Thanks to progresses in photolithography techniques optical materials can now be structured to a scale of a few tens of a nanometer. This has opened a wide field of new applications. When concerned with a scale of some tens of a micron down to a few microns, microlens and integrated optic components can be made. When the material is structured with a scale in the order of the wavelength of light, different filtering functions can be made. This concerns Bragg mirrors or more generally Photonic Crystals. A structuration in a scale small in front of the wavelength is also of a great interest. In this case the material does not diffract the light anymore an dit behaves like a homogeneous one. The calculated transmittance of a laser mirror is used to determine the effective index of the single layer equivalent to the multilayer stack. The artificial anisotropy of thin films structured with a one-dimension sub wavelength grating made by holography is measured. The limitation of the first order homogenization theory is given for two different grating steps. Polarizing coatings or polarization rotators are designed to work in normal incidence by inserting anisotropic films in simple multilayer structures.