Analysis of anisotropic dielectric gratings

Abstract

A method for analyzing slanted anisotropic gratings is presented. The propagation of electromagnetic waves in the periodic anisotropic media is described by coupled-wave equations in a unified matrix form expressing the coupling of the space harmonics in the grating region. The solution of the equations is reduced to an eigenvalue problem of this coupling matrix. Through introduction of the concepts of transmission and boundary matrices, the diffraction properties of general slanted gratings are obtained rigorously by systematic matrix calculations that are easily implemented on a computer. The calculated results indicate that not only TE–TE or TM–TM but also TE–TM diffractions take place in general slanted gratings.