THIN FILM POLARIZING DEVICE

摘要

A thin film polarizing device has first (60) and second (65) light transmissive substrates in the form of prisms and a plurality of thin film layers (64) disposed between the prisms. The thin film layers have predetermined thicknesses and refractive indices which allow unpolarized incident light to be separated into s-polarized and p-polarized light beams. Both frustrated total internal reflection and thin film interference are simultaneously employed to allow s-polarized light to be transmitted and p-polarized light to be reflected over a wide range of wavelengths and angles of incidence. The polarizing device may be used as a polarizer or a polarizer beam splitter.