Subwavelength micropolarizer in a gold film for visible light

Abstract

We have designed and fabricated a 100 μm x 100 μm four-sector binary subwavelength reflecting polarization microconverter in a gold film. Using finite-difference time-domain-aided numerical simulations and experiments, the micropolarizer was shown to convert an incident linearly polarized Gaussian beam of wavelength 532 nm into an azimuthally polarized beam. Conditions for generating on-axis regions of nonzero intensity when using propagating optical vortices with different initial polarization were deduced. By putting a spiral phase plate into an azimuthally polarized beam, the intensity pattern was shown to change from diffraction rings to a central peak.