Effect of varying pore size of AAO films on refractive index and birefringence measured by prism coupling technique

Su-Hyun Gong (1) , Arnaud Stolz (2) , Myeong Gi-Hwan (3) , El Hadj Dogheche (2) , Gokarna Anisha (2) , Sang-Wan Ryu (3) , Didier Decoster (2) , Yong-Hoon Cho (1)

1 Department of Physics and Graduate School of Nanoscience and Technology
2 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
3 Department of Physics

Anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) films with different pore sizes were prepared to modulate the effective refractive index and birefringence. To investigate the relationship between the refractive index and the pore size of the AAO film, optical constants were obtained using a prism coupler with various lasers. With experimental results, the dispersion curve of alumina itself without pores was extracted using a theoretical anisotropic model. We demonstrated that AAO films could offer a wide range of refractive index and birefringence values for optical device applications. Furthermore, index profiles as a function of the thickness of the AAO films were obtained by inverse Wentzel- Kramer-Brillouin approximation to examine the optical homogeneity.

Domaines: Optique / photonique

Su-Hyun Gong, Arnaud Stolz, Myeong Gi-Hwan, El Hadj Dogheche, Gokarna Anisha, et al.. Effect of varying pore size of AAO films on refractive index and birefringence measured by prism coupling technique. Optics Letters, 2011, 36 (21), pp.4272-4274. ⟨10.1364/OL.36.004272⟩. ⟨hal-01264151⟩