Chiral plasmonic metasurfaces for polarization detection and manipulation

Abstract

A circular polarization filter of a chiral metasurface structure is disclosed including a substrate having a nanograting pattern extending from the substrate, a dielectric layer formed directly on the nanograting pattern, and a plasmonic structure in direct contact with the dielectric layer, where the plasmonic structure may be oriented at a nonzero angle with respect to the nanograting pattern. An integrated polarization filter array is also disclosed including include a linear polarization filter, and a circular polarization filter. Methods of detecting full-stokes polarization using an integrated polarization filter array having both linear and circular polarization filters made from chiral metasurface structures is disclosed. Methods of using a Mueller matrix to evaluate polarization response of any optical device or system is also disclosed.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of detecting Full-Stokes polarization, comprising:
 introducing polarized light into an integrated polarization filter array having at least two polarization filters;   measuring an intensity of linear and circular polarization components of the polarized light;   collecting incident light transmitted from the integrated polarization filter array with a detector; and   calculating Stokes parameters of the incident light.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising moving the integrated polarization filter array in an x-axis and/or a y-axis relative to the polarized light. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising measuring insertion loss for a polarization state transmitted by one of the polarization filters. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising generating additional polarization states of the polarized light by changing a rotation angle of a linear polarizer and a quarter-wave plate coupled to the integrated polarization filter array. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the integrated polarization filter array comprises six polarization filters. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5 , wherein the integrated polarization filter array comprises four linear polarization filters and two circular polarization filters.