The diffraction from a single periodic metallic grating is shown to be significantly modified when a surfaceplasmon polariton wave is excited at the metal-dielectric interface. In particular, vanishing diffraction orders in accordance with scalar diffraction theory, are generated in the presence of the surface wave. This modification is analytically explained, and a plasmonic Bragg law is formu...

Scalar diffraction theory is frequently considered inadequate for predicting diffraction efficiencies for grating applications where lambda/d>0.1. It has also been stated that scalar theory imposes energy upon the evanescent diffracted orders. These notions, as well as several other common misconceptions, are driven more by an unnecessary paraxial approximation in the traditional Fourier treatm...

We have studied the optical properties of electrically switched holographic gratings fabricated using polymer-dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) materials. We have found that the PDLC mixture can be used to control the diffractive properties of the composite gratings, including the anisotropy of the grating. 2000 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: (050.0050) Diffraction and gratings, (050.733...

This paper is concerned with the numerical solution of an inverse diffraction grating problem, which is to reconstruct a periodic grating profile from measurements of the phaseless diffracted field at a constant height above the grating structure. An efficient continuation method is developed to recover the Fourier coefficients of the periodic grating profile. The continuation proceeds along th...

Direct laser writing has been already demonstrated for the fabrication of under surface “buried” 3D mid-IR waveguides in chalcogenide glasses by employing a large photo-induced refractive index change in the features formed in the path of the focused beam from a short pulse laser. In this paper, we report on direct laser writing of relief diffraction gratings with periods of 6, 14 and 24 μm int...

A polarization beam splitter (PBS) based on a giant-reflection to zero-order (GIRO) grating is presented. The GIRO grating is a simple binary diffraction grating with parameters chosen such that the excited optical modes in the grating interfere constructively and destructively at the respective interfaces. This interference results in high-zero-order reflection (>99%) with a high polarization-...