POLARIZER AND ITS PRODUCTION AND WAVEGUIDE TYPE OPTICAL DEVICE USING THE SAME

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To obtain a polarizer which has a high extinction ratio and small insertion loss and is easy to handle by imparting two kinds of specific rugged structures to layers which are units of laminated layers for every transparent body and imparting polarization functions acting on a prescribed light thereto. SOLUTION: Periodic grooves or projection rows are formed on a substrate 3 consisting of a polymer material. Medium 1 of a high refractive index and medium 2 of a low refractive index which are transparent are alternately laminated to cover these grooves or the projection rows while the shapes of boundaries are preserved. The structures of the layers 1 and 2 laminated on the polarizer have periodic changes in an x-axis direction and a z-axis direction and on the other hand, the uniform structures are maintained in a y-axis direction or the structures having the periodic changes considerably larger than those in the x-axis direction and the z-axis direction are formed. The plural grooves which are formed by the periodic rugged structures of the layers of the polarizer exhibited by the cross-sectional shapes of the polarization elements along the x-axis direction are formed as the groove rows. Further, the polarizer is provided with the polarization function acting on the light having the component of which the incident direction is not zero to the z-axis direction.