IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO.

20, OCTOBER 15, 2016 2211

Tunable and Polarization-Independent Wedged

Resonance Filter With 2D Crossed Grating
Bin Sheng, Hongyan Zhou, Chunxian Tao, Ali Zahid, Zhengji Ni, Yuanshen Huang,
Ruijin Hong, and Dawei Zhang

Abstract— In this letter, a tunable and polarization- tunable, by a graded thin film deposition [7] and by using the
independent guided-mode resonance filter that has two- masked ion beam etching method [8]. Adjusting the refractive
dimensional crossed grating on a wedged waveguide layer of index of polymer-dispersed liquid crystal by applying the
Ta2 O5 is fabricated and analysed for the communication band.
The wedged waveguide layer is etched by the ion beam etching voltage [9], [10], changing the filling material in the submicro-
technique with a triangle-shaped mask, and the two-dimensional optofluidic channel [11], and obtaining a gradient grating
grating is made by holographic exposure technique. The mea- periods by E-beam lithography [12] also are the effective
sured spectra show that the filter can realize the property of ways to realize the adjustment of the resonance wavelength.
polarization-independence at normal incidence. By the thickness The tunable GMRF can be used as a dispersive element for
gradient of the wedged layer, the filter is tunable in a range
of 1599.9–1621.5 nm over a distance of 9 mm. wavelength detection system [13].
Index Terms— Polarization independent, guided-mode
The tunable filters mentioned above are usually composed
resonance filter, wedged waveguide layer, two-dimensional of one-dimensional grating, which are sensitive to the polar-
grating. ization of the incident light, leading to the resonance of
TE and TM polarization occurs at different wavelengths
I. I NTRODUCTION respectively. Polarization-independent filters play an impor-

G UIDED-MODE resonance filters represent a special kind

of optical element that can reflect a narrow wavelength
band with almost 100% efficiency [1], which are used in many
tant role in dense wavelength-division-multiplexing and laser
devices [2]. Recently, the GMRFs had also been demonstrated
in the two-dimensional grating structures [14]–[19], which can
fields, such as wavelength-division-multiplexing systems [2], avoid the polarization dependence at normal incidence. The
optical filters [3], optical biosensor [4], and pressure responses of the two orthogonal polarizations are almost iden-
sensor [5]. Magnusson and Wang [3] firstly applied the guided- tical [20]. By adjusting the angle, a filter composed of two one-
mode resonance effect to the design of the filter with applica- dimensional (1D) crossed gratings had realized the properties
tions in polarization-sensitive filtering in 1992. of polarization-insensitivity and wavelength tuning [21], [22].
GMRFs can be designed to match some filtering require- Fehrembach et al. [23] illustrated the 2D hexagonal resonant-
ments and their resonance can dynamically be tuned. grating filter performance for polarization-independent. How-
Generally, the guided-mode resonance is sensitive to use ever, due to the difficult control of hole depth fabrication,
conditions and structural parameters, such as incident angle, the filter is polarization dependent and the angular tolerance
thickness of the waveguide layer, refractive indices, grat- is very small, just 0.09 degree.
ing period, and so on. In order to achieve tunable filters, In this letter, we designed and fabricated a wedged GMRF
many researches have been made. A guided-mode resonance with two-dimensional (2D) crossed gratings for the communi-
color filter is demonstrated to produce three primary colors cation band, which can realize the polarization-independence
using angular tuning [6]. A gradient wedged waveguide layer and wavelength tuning through the thickness variation of the
thickness is obtained to realize the resonance wavelength wedged Ta2 O5 film layer. It is a simple and manageable way to
achieve the wedged layer by using ion beam etching process.
Manuscript received June 1, 2016; revised July 9, 2016; accepted
July 11, 2016. Date of publication July 18, 2016; date of current version
September 1, 2016. This work was supported in part by the National Science II. D ESIGN , FABRICATION AND C HARACTERIZATION
Instrument Important Project under Grant 2011YQ14014704, in part by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 61205156, OF THE W EDGED GMRF
Grant 11105149, and Grant 61378060, in part by the Shanghai Municipal
Science Instrument Important Project under Grant 14142200902, and in A. Design
part by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) We design two-dimensional crossed rectangular grating
under 2015CB352001. (Corresponding authors: Bin Sheng and
Hongyan Zhou.) structure on a wedged waveguide layer, shown in Fig.1 (a).
The authors are with the Ministry of Education and Shanghai Key The GMRF consists of a BK7 glass (n g = 1.5) substrate that is
Laboratory of Modern Optical Systems, Engineering Research Center of coated with a wedged thin film of Ta2 O5 (n t = 2.1), 2D grat-
Optical Instruments and Systems, University of Shanghai for Science
and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China (e-mail: bsheng@usst.edu.cn; ing and buffer layer of photoresist (n b = 1.63). Based on
630420506@qq.com; chxtao@live.com; arainzahid@hotmail.com; sioi@usst. the rigorous coupled wave theory, considering the light source
edu.cn; hyshyq@sina.com; rjhongcn@163.com; usstoe@vip.163.com). and the band the optical spectrum analyzer (OSA) can detect,
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. the GMRF is designed at the resonance peaks around 1550 nm
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LPT.2016.2590942 and the following structure parameters are determined. The
1041-1135 © 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
2212 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO. 20, OCTOBER 15, 2016

Fig. 2. The atomic force microscopy scanning image of the fabricated

2D grating. (a) Three dimensional drawing. Cross-sectional drawings of the
direction of grating lines: (b) parallel to the variation direction of wedged
layer, and (c) perpendicular to the variation direction of wedged layer.

Fig. 1. Schematic drawing of 2D grating filter. (a) Structure diagram,

(b) fabrication process of the designed GMRF. C. Measured Results and Characterizations
Reflected spectra of the fabricated GMRFs are measured
by an optical spectrum analyzer (AQ6370C, YOKOGAWA).
period of each direction of 2D grating is 1010 nm, with
Using a transmitted polarized light whose beam size is about
the groove depth of about 180 nm. The grating layer filling
2 mm in diameter, the reflectance values of the filter in a
factor f is 0.5, and the photoresist buffer layer is about 70 nm.
specific position were obtained at normal incidence. By mov-
The range of the thickness of the wedged waveguide layer is
ing the filter on an adjustable bracket, the reflection peaks at
from 250 to 320 nm.
different positions can be measured.
The polarization direction of the incident light can be
B. Fabrication changed by using a polarizer. We define the polarization state,
The process of fabricating the filter is shown in Fig.1 (b). where the vibration direction of electric field is parallel to
We use the Ta2 O5 film as the waveguide layer on the substrate the variation direction of wedged waveguide layer, as the
of BK7 glass, whose size is 10 mm2 . Then, the Ta2 O5 film is x-polarization. The y-polarization is defined as the state per-
etched by ion beam etching technique with a triangle-shaped pendicular to the x-polarization. In fact, the resonance peaks
mask according to the references [8] and [24]. Etched for are generated only in the direction of variation perpendicular
a certain number of times, the Ta2 O5 thin film of uniform to the grating lines, namely the TM polarization mode, within
thickness was eventually etched into a wedged layer in cross- the detecting wavelength band. In addition, the phenomenon
section. Measured by a surface profilometer, the thickness of was also verified by Fig. 3 that the resonance peaks under
Ta2 O5 layer is about 250 nm at lateral position x = 1mm two polarizations are almost in the same position, which
and is linearly varied to a thickness of approximately 320 nm demonstrates the properity of polarization-independence.
at x = 10 mm. In x-polarization, the resonance peaks were measured in
Considering that the surface roughness of the film can affect one direction. By rotating the polarizer for 90 degrees and
the optical properties of the filter, the RMS roughness of keeping the filter fixed, the reflection spectrum at the same
Ta2 O5 film was measued before and after etching, which were location in y-polarization is measured. In order to tune the
1.34 nm and 1.16 nm respectively. The results show that the resonance wavelength, the filter is moved along the thickness
etching process does not increase the surface roughness of the variation direction of the wedged layer. Reflected spectra
film, and even to some extent improve it, which has no obvious at three positions on the filter were measured and shown
effect on the waveguiding properties. in Fig.3 (a).
The 2D gratings were exposed by two plane-wave inter- At the positions of 1 mm, 5 mm, and 10 mm of the
ference using He-Cd laser of 441.6 nm, recorded on the GMRF, the corresponding thickness of the waveguide layer is
photoresist of AZ1500, and then were developed. The atomic 250.0 nm, 281.1 nm, and 320.0 nm. And, the corresponding
force microscopy scanning image of the fabricated 2D grating resonance wavelength is approximately 1599.9 nm, 1609.8 nm,
is shown in figure 2. and 1621.5 nm respectively, which gives a 21.6 nm increment
It shows that the groove type of 2D grating is sinusoid-like over a distance of 9 mm. It is quitely obvious that the
groove with filling factor f of 0.7. In the direction of grating resonance peaks are dependent on the spatial positions of the
lines parallel to the variation direction of wedged layer, shown filter. When the thickness of the waveguide layer increases,
in Fig.2 (b), the groove depth is about 206 nm with a period the resonance peaks under two modes shift to the long wave
of 1102 nm. And in the perpendicular direction, shown in Fig.2 direction, which can be explained by the slab waveguide
(c), the groove depth is about 165 nm with the same period theory. The GMRF can be equivalent to the analysis of slab
of 1102 nm. Obviously, the periods in each direction of the 2D waveguide. According to the mode eigen equation of slab
grating are the same, but the groove depth is different. Com- waveguide, when the thickness of waveguide layer increases,
pared with our design structure, the groove depth and grating the phase shift occurs, and the resonance mode is changed.
filling factors would have influence on the bandwidth (full In order to keep resonance mode unchanged, the wavelength
width at half-maximum) and the diffraction efficiency. must become longer. Also, it can be seen from Fig.3 (b) that
SHENG et al.: TUNABLE AND POLARIZATION-INDEPENDENT WEDGED RESONANCE FILTER 2213

Fig. 4. Simulated reflection spectra for three positions of (a) 1 mm, (b) 5mm,
(c) 10 mm, with the corresponding thickness of waveguide layerof 250 nm,
281.1 nm and 320 nm.

diameter was approximately 2 mm, resulting in a shift of the

resonance frequency of around 4 nm across the beam width.
Considering the intensity profile of the beam [25], the esti-
mated bandwidth broadening is similar to the expeimental
bandwidth. What’s more, a special thickness of waveguide
layer supports one waveguide mode. A small thickness gra-
dient of the waveguide layer brings about the resonance
wavelength gradient, which leads to the resonance widening
and reduction of reflectivity [23]. A smaller gradient which
Fig. 3. (a) Measured reflection spectra for three positions of (1) 1 mm, closes to the planar waveguide could limit the degradation of
(2) 5 mm, (3) 10 mm, with corresponding resonance wavelengths
of 1599.9 nm, 1609.8 nm and 1621.5 nm under x-polarization and efficiency.
y-polarization respectively. (b) The diagram of the Ta2 O5 thickness and In addition, it can be seen from Fig. 3(a) that the measured
resonance wavelengths changing with the spatial position of the filter. reflectivities under x-polarization are a little lower than those
under another polarization. This is mainly because of the inho-
mogeneity of the filter caused by error of fabrication, including
the relationship between resonance wavelengths and the spatial nonuniform grating depth, grating period, and groove shape,
location on the filter is approximately linear, owing to the shown in Fig. 2. The 2D grating was fabricated by two separate
nearly linear Ta2 O5 thickness gradient, which is similar to the interference exposure, which is difficult to make a uniform
result of 1D wedged GMRF [8]. grating. The different grating depth leads to the different
modulation degree in two directions, greatly affecting the
III. D ISCUSSIONS reflection efficiency. And, these defects can scatter the light
Through a wedged waveguide layer and a 2D crossed and may act as an effective absorption that can degrade the
grating, we obtained a polarization-independent and tunable filter response. Besides, measured results have a significant
GMRF, with a range of 1599.9 to 1621.5 nm over a length reflection about 10-20% away from the resonance. A cause of
of 9 mm. And, the relationship between resonance wavelengths deterioration of the filter performance is the finite-size effect.
and the spatial location on the filter is approximately linear. Indeed, the simulations are performed with infinite gratings,
In order to illustrate the experimental results better, we sim- whereas the component is finite in the experiment. Another
ulate the reflection spectra of three different waveguide layer error source is environmental light interference.
thicknesses of 1D grating filter, using the same parame- Although the two-dimensional wedged polarization-
ters of the experiment, including the same grating period independent require fabrication process of extremely high
and waveguide thickness, with grating depth of 180 nm. quality, a wavelength tuning range of about 21.6 nm was
The groove type of the grating is designed to be sinusoid- obtained finally.
like with f of 0.7. Simulated by the software of GSolver,
the results of reflected spectra are shown in Fig. 4. IV. C ONCLUSION
By comparison, we find the performance deterioration of In this letter, a tunable and polarization-independent guided-
the filter in both bandwidth and efficiency. The bandwidth of mode resonance filter was designed and fabricated for the
simulated results is 1.6 to 2.4 nm while that in experiment is communication band. The filter consists of a wedged Ta2 O5
2.8 to 3.9 nm. Based on the couple mode theory, one can see waveduide layer thickness changing from 250 to 320 nm,
that what determines the spectral width of the resonance is with 2D crossed gratings. The measured spectra show that
the strength of the coupling between free space propagating the resonance for different polarization states at normal inci-
waves and the guided modes introduced by the grating. Main dence appears at the same wavelength, realizing the property
reason is that a wedged gradient waveguide layer introduce a of polarization-independence. In addition, the filter achieves
linear dispersion of around 21/9 nm/mm. And, the beam spot wavelength tuning from 1599.9 to 1621.5 nm.
2214 IEEE PHOTONICS TECHNOLOGY LETTERS, VOL. 28, NO. 20, OCTOBER 15, 2016

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