Suppression of circular Bragg phenomenon in chiral sculptured thin films produced with simultaneous rocking and rotation of substrate during serial bideposition

Stephen E. Swiontek, Drew P. Pulsifer, Jian Xu, Akhlesh Lakhtakia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Chiral sculptured thin films (STFs) produced by substrate rotation during physical vapor deposition exhibit the circular Bragg phenomenon, whereby normally incident leftand right-circularly polarized plane waves are discriminated in a spectral regime called the circular Bragg regime. Theory had predicted that substrate rocking, in synchrony with substrate rotation, during deposition could suppress the propensity to exhibit the circular Bragg phenomenon. Therefore chiral STFs of a dielectric material were fabricated with/without substrate rocking, and their transmittance spectrums for incident linearly and circularly polarized plane waves were measured. With sufficient rocking amplitude, the discrimination between incident left- and right-circularly polarized light nearly vanished, whereas a Bragg phenomenon for all normally incident plane waves was observed. Thus, chiral STF technology can be used to produce both ordinary and circular-polarization Bragg filters.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number12131SSP
JournalJournal of Nanophotonics
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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