DIFFRACTION SELECTIVE POLARIZATION BEAM SPLITTER AND BEAM ROUTING PRISM MANUFACTURED BY THE SAME

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a polarization beam splitter from which one or more problems or thresholds of the conventional multilayered dielectric beam splitter are substantially removed.;SOLUTION: A diffraction grating having a grating period indicating selectively remarkable polarization is used as the polarization beam splitter to polarized light made incident at an oblique angle. The grating is preferably so designed as to nearly transmit the polarized light of a transverse mode (TM) at a certain wavelength or incident angle which is preferably a half wavelength of an illumination beam and to nearly reflect the polarized light of a transverse electric mode (TE). For the purpose of the easier production, the optical pickup using the polarization beam router, a dichromatic beam coupler, a beam splitter on a curved surface, optical beam splitter, and router may be formed by integrating the grating together with other optical elements, such as a half wavelength retarder for the polarization beam splitter.;COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI