Surface Plasmon Wave plates

TL;DR

This paper explores the design and testing of a nanostructured surface that can convert linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light at a specific wavelength, demonstrating high polarization purity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel rectangular hole array with tunable periodicities for efficient polarization conversion, validated through both numerical simulations and experimental fabrication.

Findings

Achieved a degree of circular polarization of 0.89 at the resonant wavelength.

Validated the polarization conversion capabilities through experiments.

Demonstrated tunability of the device for specific wavelengths.

Abstract

Here I investigate both numerically and experimentally, the polarization conversion capabilities of a rectangular array of holes with two unequal orthogonal periodicities. We show that it is possible to tune the periodicities in such a way that the transmitted light is circularly polarized for a nominated wavelength, Lambda-CPL, when the structure is illuminated with appropriately oriented linearly polarized light at normal incidence. A device was fabricated and experiments confirmed that a degree of circular polarization of 0.89 could be achieved at the resonant wavelength.