Title :
Nanoscale gradient index media fabrication for extreme control and tunability of optical wave propagation
Author :
Devlin, Christie L. H. ; Vella, Jarrett H. ; Walker, Dennis E. ; Lombardi, Jack P. ; Limberopoulos, Nicholaos I. ; Derov, John S.
Author_Institution :
Sensors Directorate, United States Air Force Res. Lab., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, USA
Abstract :
Gradient Index Media have multiple applications for controlling the wave propagation and harvesting its received energy or processing its embedded data. A nanofabrication process was developed to produce a Luneburg lens on silicon, to operate in the optical regime, with feature sizes smaller than 100nm. The focused energy of the Luneburg lens is compared with lenses of non-spatially-varying index as well as a linear spatial variation, and its enhanced focusing is clearly demonstrated. In addition, a mechanism of thermal tunability of such devices is proposed and is supported by our results.
Keywords :
gradient index optics; lenses; light propagation; nanofabrication; nanophotonics; optical fabrication; optical tuning; Luneburg lens; energy harvesting; extreme control; focusing; linear spatial variation; nanofabrication; nanoscale gradient index media fabrication; optical wave propagation; thermal tunability; Focusing; Gratings; Indexes; Lenses; Optical device fabrication; Silicon; Luneburg lens; control; gradient index; nanofabrication; optical wave; thermal; tunability;
Conference_Titel :
Aerospace and Electronics Conference, NAECON 2014 - IEEE National
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-4690-7
DOI :
10.1109/NAECON.2014.7045774
