Patent ID: 7113335
Filing Date: 2006-09-26
Classification: G02B

Abstract:
1. A grid polarizer comprising: a substrate; and a plurality of stacked metal and dielectric or semiconductor layers, having a width w, disposed on the substrate and forming a parallel grid of stacked layers, the stacked layers spaced apart to form a repetition space between the stacked layers, Λ, such that no diffraction orders are allowed to propagate except the zero order resulting in a grid polarizer that is capable of transmitting substantially all illumination of a given polarization while suppressing at least a portion of the illumination reflected due to an orthogonal polarization component; wherein the repetition space, Λ, satisfies the relation: where λ represents the operating wavelength of the polarizer, n i represents the index of the incidence media, and n t represents the index of the transmitting media; wherein to stacked layers each comprise a first metal layer, a second dielectric or semiconductor layer, and a third metal layer, the thickness of the second dielectric or semiconductor layer being selected such that a transmission intensity, I is substantially zero, where α represents absorption by the incident illumination upon interaction with the interface of first metal layer and the second dielectric or semiconductor layer and r represents reflection coefficient.