Study on guided-mode resonance characteristic of multilayer dielectric grating with broadband and wide using-angle

Guided-mode resonance in a diffraction band of multilayer dielectric gratings may lead to a catastrophic result in laser system, especially in the ultrashort pulse laser system, so the inhibition of guided-mode resonance is very important. In this paper the characteristics of guided-mode resonance in multilayer dielectric grating are studied with the aim of better understanding the physical process of guided-mode resonance and designing a broadband multilayer dielectric grating with no guided-mode resonance. By employing waveguide theory, all guided-wave modes appearing in multilayer dielectric grating are found, and the incident conditions, separately, corresponding to each guided-wave mode are also obtained. The electric field enhancement in multilayer dielectric grating is shown obviously. Furthermore, from the detailed analyses on the guided-mode resonance conditions, it is found that the reduction of the grating period would effectively avoid the appearing of guided-mode resonance. And the expressions for calculating maximum periods, which ensure that no guided-mode resonance occurs in the requiring broad angle or wavelength range, are first reported. The above results calculated by waveguide theory and Fourier mode method are compared with each other, and they are coincident completely. Moreover, the method that relies on waveguide theory is more helpful for understanding the guided-mode resonance excited process and analyzing how each parameter affects the characteristic of guided-mode resonance. Therefore, the effects of multilayer dielectric grating parameters, such as period, fill factor, thickness of grating layer, et al., on the guided-mode resonance characteristic are discussed in detail based on waveguide theory, and some meaningful results are obtained.