Polymers with high mass-productivity are the best material for waveguide in AR/VR/MR smart glasses, for which demand is increasing year by year. However, polymer waveguides are difficult to obtain a wide field of view because of its lower refractive index compared to glass. Since a wide field of view can be obtained even with polymer waveguides by dividing the field of view, we performed optical design, mold design, mold processing, and injection molding of an injection moldable surface relief grating type waveguide. We used a polymer with relatively high refractive index and good flowability to improve the transferability of diffraction grating and design flexibility. The diffraction gratings manufactured on a trial basis were measured and fed back into the optical design to improve the efficiency of the waveguide. Waveguide and laser beam scanning module were combined to image the projection image. The captured image looks like a projected image through a screen door because the tiling length is larger than the pupil size. The future challenge is to improve the quality of the projected image by achieving thinner thickness and higher precision molding.
Currently we are developing a VB grating for an echelle grism of the Subaru Multi-Object InfraRed Camera and Spectograph (MOIRCS) and a VB grating for the Advanced Lunar Imaging Spectrometer (ALIS) of the Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX). The shapes of gratings are optimized to achieve high diffraction efficiency and a wide spectral bandwidth by performing numerical calculations of the rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA). Based on the calculated results, we are developing variety of gratings using MEMS technologies. In addition, we have deployed new high-dispersion grisms of J and H band of MOIRCS with transmission gratings fabricated by LightSmyth. The transmission grating is kind of a VB grating which ridges are composed by three kinds of dielectric layers.
A two dimensional sinusoid diffraction grating is developed for a moiré-reducing low-pass filter. Typical display units
have image pixels arranged systematically in two dimensions, with non-illuminating regions between the image pixels.
Using a conventional lens to view this display, the image pixels and the region between the pixels are both magnified,
and the resulting image is unpleasant to the human eye, especially with color displays, called the screen door effect. This
pixel problem is typically solved with a low-pass filter using a diffraction grating. However, depending on the period of
the diffraction grating compared to the period of the image pixels, moiré can be seen.
In recent years, organic electroluminescence displays with a small fill factor are growing popular, but such displays are
usually more prone to the screen door effect and moiré. With conventional optical low-pass filters, only the pixel pitch in
the vertical and horizontal directions are taken into account, but this is insufficient with small fill-factor pixels, and
consideration for various diagonal periods is needed.
A two dimensional sinusoid structure diffraction grating is developed for a moiré-reducing low-pass filter. The angle of
the grating with the image pixel arrangement, the distance between the display and the grating, the grating depth, and the
grating period are all chosen appropriately, and take into account multiple non-adjacent diagonal image pixel periods for
all colors, consequently reducing moiré and the screen door effect. We present the calculations and evaluation results
from plastic samples made by lithography tooled molds.
This paper presents the development of a nanofabricated mid-infrared optical source, thermally emitting linearly
polarized light. The optical source in the current study is a heated series of one-dimensional metal-insulator-metal
cavities with a closed end on a Au surface. This closed cavity exhibits the so-called organ pipe resonance resulting in
specific frequencies being selectively emitted from the blackbody heat source. This characteristic results in the control of
the thermal radiation, thereby emitting a narrow infrared spectrum at a specific wavelength of 2.5-5.35 micro-meters.
The wavelength is specified by a theoretical model and 100nm wide, 1000nm deep dimensions of the cavity were
accurately manufactured. The maximum emittance reaches 0.90, and the peak width Δλ/λ is as narrow as 0.13-0.23. As
a demonstration, the Cyclohexane concentration in Benzene is determined with a simple optical system. This simple
emitter is expected to play a key role in the infrared sensing technologies for analyzing our environment.
The interaction of light with a sub-wavelength period grating can be approximated by a uniform medium with an
effective refractive index. The effective index is a function of the grating structure, the indices of its composite
materials and the polarization of light. In this paper we report on the design, fabrication and testing of CD, DVD
polarization selective hologram gratings based upon this principle. We first describe the design, fabrication and
testing of a one-layer structure. We then consider the design, fabrication and testing of a two-layer structure.
We show, how the two-layer structure produces similar performance however has the lower aspect ratio. The
two-layer structure is also shown to be less sensitive to off design wavelength and incident angle. Both gratings
have been designed to function with the wavelengths of CD, and DVD.
In many applications, where the period of a grating structure is less than the wavelength of the incident light, the grating structure will function more like a medium of uniform index of refraction than as a normal grating. The effective medium index being equivalent to the volume mean index of the grating structure. The equalivent refractive index will depend on its structure or material. When the structure is given orientation, anisotropy called constitutive birefringence will be generated. A refractive index profile can be also be provided on material surface.
Making use of these properties of sub-wavelength structure, we have successfully established methods to design, fabricate, prototype, and evaluate elements which perform polarization separation. The polarization separation elements consist of two-layers, plastic material (low refractive-index layer) and vacuum evaporation material (high refractive-index layer). The grating structure has a very small depth.
Polarization separation elements both for single wavelength and two wavelengths can be designed. These elements can be designed for any fixed incident angle to the substrate, They can replace glass polarization separation elements and half mirror elements currently used for DVD/CD. It is also one of advantages that they can be mass produced with low cost.
In recent years, the demand for the high efficiency diffractive optical element is booming for large capacity storage devices. Instead of conventional lithographic approach to fabricate molds, we have developed a new technology utilizing an electron beam writer in order to produce molds used for injection modeling high-accuracy diffractive optical elements. Although we have already developed a technology to produce plastic diffractive elements, with the new technology we can produce blazed and relief features, which are not achievable through the conventional approach. By introducing a mathematical expression to give exact dosage necessary for particular depth from 0.7 to 1.3 micron ad from 1.5 to 5.0 microns pitch, high-accuracy nano-3D features can be controlled within +/- 50 nm in pitch and +/- 35 nm in depth. This blazed structure was designed to achieve 41 percent identical 0th and first order and the result is 39.0 percent for 0th and 37.9 percent for first order at 780 nm.
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