GUIDED-MODE RESONANCE FILTERS OF FINITE APERTURE

The operation of optical narrowband reflection filters based on resonance anomalies of waveguide gratings is well established for gratings of infinite extent. We investigate the properties of finite-aperture waveguide-grating resonance filters by means of rigorous electromagnetic theory and an approximate model. The rigorous approach illustrates the scattering of optical energy from the guided mode at and near the edges of the element, which leads to a reduced diffraction efficiency into the backward-diffracted zeroth order. The approximate approach provides an optical-engineering model for the estimation of the minimum grating size required to achieve a high resonance-wavelength reflectivity.