Design and parallel fabrication of wire-grid polarization arrays for polarization-resolved imaging at 1.55 μm

Polarization-resolved imaging can provide information about the composition and topography of the environment that is invisible to the eye. We demonstrate a practical method to fabricate arrays of small, orthogonal wire-grid polarizers (WGPs) that can be matched to individual detector pixels, and we present design curves that relate the structure to the polarization extinction ratio obtained. The photonic area lithographically mapped (PALM) method uses multiple-exposure conventional and holographic lithography to create subwavelength patterns easily aligned to conventional mask features. WGPs with polarization extinction ratios of (similar to)10 at a 1.55 mu m wavelength were fabricated, and square centimeter areas of square micrometer size WGP arrays suitable for polarization-resolved imaging on glass were realized. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America.