Design of non-polarizing thin film edge filters

Abstract

The separation between s-and p-polarization components invariably affects thin film edge filters used for tilted incidence and is a difficult problem for many applications, especially for optical communication. This paper presents a novel design method to obtain edge filters with non-polarization at incidence angle of 45°. The polarization separation at 50% transmittance for a long-wave-pass filter and a short-wave-pass filter is 0.3 nm and 0.1 nm respectively. The design method is based on a broadband Fabry-Perot thin-film interference filter in which the higher or lower interference band at both sides of the main transmittance peak can be used for initial design of long-wave-pass filter or short-wave-pass filter and then can be refined to reduce the transmittance ripples. The spacer 2H2L2H or 2L2H2L of the filter is usually taken. Moreover, the method for expanding the bandwidth of rejection and transmission is explained. The bandwidth of 200 nm for both rejection region and transmission band is obtained at wavelength 1550 nm. In this way, the long-wave-pass and short-wave-pass edge filters with zero separation between two polarization components can easily be fabricated.