Diffractive Optical Elements

A Diffractive Optical Element (DOE) manipulates phase and amplitude of the light propagating trough it by means of a pattern in the dimension of the wavelength. Typical DOEs are periodic patterns (gratings), Fresnel lenses, isolated target patterns, binary gratings, pinholes, etc.

The following figure outlines a typical setup to simulate light scattering off a DOE:

Schematics: DOE Simulation Setup

Often the DOE resides on a dielectric substrate. An illuminating light field (e.g. plane wave) hits the DOE either from below or from above. This excites transmitted and reflected fields which are typical quantities of interest.

JCMsuite computes the electromagnetic near field, and uses this to derive the far field (transmitted and reflected) by either a FourierTransform or a FarFieldEvaluation post-process.

For periodic structures the FourierTransform post-process yields the discrete diffraction modes. For isolated problems the FourierTransform consists of a continuously distributed scattered field and eventually discrete modes arising from the plane wave illumination.

Together with the FourierTransform you can use the OpticalImaging post-process to form an image as produced by an imaging tool (e.g. microscope).