Subwavelength gratings fabricated on semiconductor substrates via E-beam lithography and lift-off method

We present results of the fabrication and measurements on reflective polarizers consisting of stacked bi-layer subwavelength metal gratings prepared on GaAs (100) substrates. These linear gratings were fabricated using electron-beam direct-writing lithography and the lift-off method with periods less than the wavelength of light used for measurements. At normal incidence, the polarizer reflects the light polarized perpendicular to the grating lines (transverse magnetic polarization, TM polarized) but absorbs parallel-polarized light (transverse electric polarization, TE polarized). By optimizing structural parameters, the polarization extinction ratio close to 20 has been experimentally achieved at wavelength of 650 nm.