518
2, FEBRUARY 2004
Ultrabroadband Mirror Using Low-Index
Cladded Subwavelength Grating
Carlos F. R. Mateus, Student Member, IEEE, Michael C. Y. Huang, Student Member, IEEE, Yunfei Deng,
Andrew R. Neureuther, Fellow, IEEE, and Connie J. Chang-Hasnain, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—We report a novel subwavelength grating that has a
very broad reflection spectrum and very high reflectivity. The de-
sign is scalable for different wavelengths. It facilitates monolithic
integration of optoelectronic devices at a wide range of wavelengths
from visible to far infrared.
Index Terms—Infrared imaging sensor, infrared surveillance,
mirror, optical communication, optical microelectro-mechanical
(MEM), optical sensors, reconfigurable architecture, tunable
filters, tunable optoelectronic devices.
I. INTRODUCTION
B ROADBAND mirrors (
flectivity (
) with very high re-
) are essential for numerous applica-
tions, including telecommunications, surveillance, sensors, and
imaging, ranging from 0.7–12- m wavelength regimes. Metal
mirrors have larger reflection bandwidths but lower reflectiv-
ities ( ), limited by absorption loss. As a result, they are not
suitable for fabricating transmission-type optical devices such
as etalon filters. Dielectric mirrors have a low loss and, thus, can
achieve a higher reflectivity. However, the deposition methods
are often not precise enough to lead to very high reflectivi-
ties. Furthermore, the typical material combinations often have
a rather small bandwidth, limited by the refractive index dif-
ference of the materials used. For tunable etalon type devices,
such as microelectro-mechanical (MEM) vertical cavity surface
emitting lasers (VCSEL), filters [1], and detectors [2], the tuning
range is often limited by semiconductor-based distributed Bragg
reflectors (DBRs) to to . The challenge of de-
signing a mirror with broadband reflection, low loss and com-
patibility with optoelectronic processing has not been overcome
yet.
Subwavelength gratings have been used either to create
structures with either sharp highly reflective peaks at resonance
wavelengths [3], [4] or broad antireflective bands [5]. The final
spectral characteristic of the grating can be further tailored by
the materials used and parameters chosen.
In this letter, we report a novel subwavelength grating that
has a very broad reflection spectrum and very high reflectivity.
Two examples are shown for with
and with . The design is scalable for
Manuscript received July 22, 2003; revised October 4, 2003. This work was
supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Center
for Bio-Optoelectronic Sensor Systems (BOSS) under Grant MDA9720010020
and in part by the CAPES Foundation and Brazilian Air Command.
The authors are with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Com-
puter Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA, 94720 USA (e-mail:
mateus@photonics.eecs.berkeley.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LPT.2003.821258
1041-1135/04$20.00 © 2004 IEEE
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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO.
Fig. 1. Scheme of the subwavelength grating reflector. The low index material
under the grating is essential for the broadband mirror effect.
different wavelengths. It facilitates monolithic integration of op-
toelectronic devices at a wide range of wavelengths from visible
to far infrared.
II. SUBWAVELENGTH GRATING AS BROADBAND REFLECTOR
The proposed structure has a large refractive index differ-
ence among materials, resulting in a very broadband reflector.
Fig. 1 shows the scheme of such a mirror that consists of lines
of high/low index material surrounded by two low index layers.
The larger the difference between high and low indexes is, the
larger the reflection band. The low index layer under the grating
is critical for the mirror effect. Design parameters for the struc-
ture include the materials involved (index of refraction), thick-
ness of the low index layer under the grating ( ), grating period
( ), grating thickness ( ), and fill factor. Fill factor is defined
as the ratio of the width of the high index material to .
Fig. 2 shows reflected power for light polarized perpen-
dicular to the grating lines. The simulation was based on
rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) [6] and confirmed
by finite-difference time-domain electromagnetic propaga-
tion using TEMPEST [7]. The two methods are in excellent
agreement. A very broadband mirror , with
, was obtained around 1.55 m, over the range
1.33–1.80 m, as depicted by Fig. 2(a). The mirror is also very
broad for (1.40–1.67 m or ).
The parameters used in the simulation were: Si sub-
strate ( ), m, (Poly-Si.),
low index material in and above the grating (air),
(SiO ), m, and fill factor .
The index of refraction was considered constant along the
covered range, which is a very good approximation, since most
semiconductor materials such as Si, GaAs, and ZnSe have
index of refraction practically independent of wavelength in
the considered ranges.
It is interesting to note that the broadband reflectivity does
not result from a resonance, as the period of the grating is sub-
wavelength but not half-wavelength. Furthermore, the reflec-
MATEUS et al.: ULTRABROADBAND MIRROR
Fig. 2. Reflected power for light polarized perpendicularly to the grating lines.
(a) Thick line was obtained based on RCWA [6], while the dashed line was
obtained with TEMPEST [7]. (b) A simple scaling factor (6.5) applied to the
dimensions gives completely overlapped traces. The thick line is centered at
1.55 m, while the dashed line is at 10 m.
tivity spectrum can be scaled with wavelength, as shown in
Fig. 2(b). By simply multiplying the dimensions by a constant,
in this case 6.5, while keeping the other parameters, the reflec-
tion band shifts to the 8.6–11.7- m wavelength range with all
features and values being identical. Hence, any different wave-
length regime can use the same design. Note that the same con-
stant has also multiplied the horizontal scale in order to make
the comparison easier. Although it may be obvious that any peri-
odic structure should be wavelength scalable, the scaling here is
easily manufacturable, since it only requires changing the layer
dimensions. Physical origins of the broadband reflection phe-
nomenon are under investigation.
The low index material layer under the grating is essential to
obtain the high broadband reflection. This is shown in Fig. 3,
which consists of contour plots of reflectivity as a function of
wavelength, and . Keeping all the other parameters the
same, there is no reflection band for m. Above this
thickness, the structure has low sensitivity to the low index layer,
but this parameter can be used to optimize the reflection band.
The mirror also does not exist if . If Si N ( ) increase indefinitely and there is an optimum point where the
is used instead of SiO , the result would be a much smaller
reflection band, ranging from 1.7–1.8 m.
III. PARAMETER ANALYSIS
The various design parameters play interesting roles on the
final reflectivity spectrum. Any material system with a large
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519
Fig. 3. Effect of the low index layer under the grating. (a) Reflectivity as
function of wavelength and t . There is no reflection band when t < 0:1 m,
and above this value, the structure has low sensitivity to this parameter. (b)
Reflectivity as function of wavelength and n . The mirror also does not exist
if n > 2:5.
difference in index of refraction can be used as a base for this
broadband mirror, and the larger this difference, the larger the
band. Our simulations show results for Poly-Silicon–air–SiO ,
but GaAs–Al O , GaN–air or ZnSe–CaF would be compa-
rable. Thus, this grating is a potential candidate for several ac-
tive and passive devices such as visible and infrared wavelength
VCSELs [8] and MEM tunable devices [1], [2]. In the following
discussion, we show design tolerance by varying one of the pa-
rameters, while keeping the others constant.
The grating period determines the location of the center wave-
length of the reflection band, and this effect is shown in Fig. 4.
The band shifts to longer wavelengths proportionally to , and
for m, the band is the broadest. The period can be
controlled very accurately by lithographic methods, and thus,
the reflection band can be precisely fabricated.
Grating thickness and fill factor determine the intensity of
modulation, or grating strength. However, this strength cannot
grating effect is strongest with respect to reflectivity.
Fig. 5 shows the effect of . For a very thin grating, the mirror
is sharp and the optimized bandwidth occurs for m.
Above this value, the mirror gets sharp again. As this parameter
can be precisely controlled by epitaxial growth or plasma depo-
sition techniques, the optimized design can be easily fabricated.
520
Fig. 4. Reflectivity as function of wavelength and 3. The reflection band shifts
to longer wavelengths proportionally to the period, and for 3 = 0:7 the band
is the broadest.
Fig. 5. Reflectivity as function of wavelength and t . The optimized
bandwidth occurs for t = 0:45, and it gets sharper when it is further
increased. This parameter can be precisely controlled by epitaxial growth or
plasma deposition techniques.
Fig. 6. Reflectivity as function of wavelength and fill factor. When fill factor
is increased, two reflection peaks merge to form one broad and flat reflection
band.
Fig. 6 shows the effect of fill factor. There are two reflec-
tion peaks for a fill factor of 0.5, one at 1.1 m and the other at
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IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 16, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2004
1.6 m. As the fill factor increases, the two peaks merge to form
one broad and flat reflection band. This parameter is probably
the most critical in fabrication as small variations in lithography
can change the final value. It may slightly affect the flatness of
the band (if the fill factor gets smaller, the two peaks tend to sep-
arate) or its coverage (if fill factor gets larger, mirror bandwidth
decreases).
In this design, where lines are used, reflection is polarization
dependent. This can be advantageous to control the polarization
on a VCSEL, e.g., if the grating design is used for the mirrors. If
a two-dimensional grating is chosen instead, reflectivity would
be polarization independent. The grating sensitivity to all these
parameters can be optimized iteratively. If the application has
a less stringent requirement on reflectivity, i.e., , most
of the parameters have a large tolerance range, sometimes up
to 10% variation. Experimental results are being carried on and
will be presented soon.
IV. CONCLUSION
We have presented a subwavelength grating that under normal
incident light has very broad reflection spectrum (
and ). The mirror can be easily scaled by simply
multiplying the dimensions by a constant.
This design has potential application on micro-electro-me-
chanical tunable devices, VCSELs and reconfigurable focal
plane arrays. It is insensitive to lateral position on cascaded
structures and can be easily fabricated monolithically with
optoelectronic devices.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Authors would like to acknowledge Dr. L. Chen (Raytheon
Company) for support.
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