POLARIZING BEAM SPLITTER BASED ON THE ANISOTROPIC SPECTRAL REFLECTIVITY CHARACTERISTIC OF FORM-BIREFRINGENT MULTILAYER GRATINGS

We introduce a novel polarizing beam splitter that uses the anisotropi c spectral reflectivity (ASR) characteristic of a high-spatial-frequen cy multilayer binary grating. Such ASR effects allow us to design an o ptical element that is transparent for TM polarization and reflective for TE polarization. For normally incident light our element acts as a polarization-selective mirror. The properties of this polarizing beam splitter are investigated with rigorous coupled-wave analysis. The de sign results show that an ASR polarizing beam splitter can provide a h igh polarization extinction ratio for optical waves from a wide range of incident angles and a broad optical spectral bandwidth. (C) 1996 Op tical Society of America