Abstract

Quarter-wave retardation can be achieved in optical tunneling through a low-index thin film that is surrounded by a medium of higher refractive index, for any index ratio $N>2.414$, over a range of incidence angles that is determined by N. A novel frustrated-total-internal-reflection circular polarization beam splitter (CPBS) is proposed that uses an adjustable air gap between two Ge prisms. This tunable CPBS operates over a broad $(2–12\mu \mathrm{m})$ IR spectral range by controlling the air-gap thickness to match one-tenth of the wavelength of light by use of a piezoelectric transducer.

© 2005 Optical Society of America

Principal angles and principal azimuths of frustrated total internal reflection and optical tunneling by an embedded low-index thin film

R. M. A. Azzam and F. F. Sudradjat
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 28(6) 1256-1261 (2011)

Circular polarization beam splitter that uses frustrated total internal reflection by an embedded symmetric achiral multilayer coating

R. M. A. Azzam and A. De
Opt. Lett. 28(5) 355-357 (2003)

Phase shifts in frustrated total internal reflection and optical tunneling by an embedded low-index thin film

R. M. A. Azzam
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 23(4) 960-965 (2006)

Embedded centrosymmetric multilayer stacks as complete-transmission quarter-wave and half-wave retarders under conditions of frustrated total internal reflection

S. R. Perla and R. M. A. Azzam
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 24(10) 3255-3260 (2007)

Simplified design of thin-film polarizing beam splitter using embedded symmetric trilayer stack

R. M. A. Azzam
Appl. Opt. 50(19) 3316-3320 (2011)