Metamaterial-based polarization control plate for producing incoherent laser irradiation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a metamaterial-based polarization control plate that manipulates local polarization to produce incoherent laser irradiation, reducing speckle contrast and improving uniformity in laser applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel design using L-shaped plasmonic metamaterials with variable geometry to control polarization distribution for incoherent laser light.

Findings

Effective suppression of speckle contrast

Enhanced irradiation uniformity

Potential for improved incoherent laser applications

Abstract

We present a metamaterial-based random polarization control plate to produce incoherent laser irradiation by exploiting the ability of metamaterial in local polarization manipulation of beam upon transmission via tuning its local geometry. As a proof-of-principle, we exemplify this idea numerically in a simple optical system using a typical L-shaped plasmonic metamaterial with locally varying geometry, from which the desired polarization distribution can be obtained. The calculating results illustrate that this scheme can effectively suppress the speckle contrast and increase irradiation uniformity, which has potential to satisfy the increasing requirements for incoherent laser irradiation.