Design of omnidirectional high reflectors with quarter-wave dielectric stacks for optical telecommunication bands

A design for omnidirectional high reflectors with quarter-wave dielectric stacks in the optical telecommunication band that uses conventional optical thin-film design theory is described. The omnidirectional bandwidth is derived in units of wavelength and investigated as a function of its high- and low-refractive-index values in the near infrared. The results show that the high refractive index should be larger than 2.26 for an omnidirectional high reflector and that the low refractive index for maximum omnidirectional bandwidth should be similar to1.5. It is shown that one can design broad-bandwidth omnidirectional high reflectors for S, C, and L bands for optical telecommunication simply by connecting the band edges of omnidirectional high reflectors. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.