All-dielectric polarization-preserving anisotropic mirror

The structure consisting of alternating uniaxial dielectric layers is known to produce reflection of the same polarization as the incident field; e.g., the right-hand elliptically polarized light preserves this right-handedness and ellipticity of polarization at reflection. The parameters permitting the properly-polarized reflectance to exceed 99% in a wide frequency range were considered both analytically and numerically. The mirror with tuned top-layer thickness is shown to have several times less polarization losses than the uniform mirror. The hybrid mirror with metallic bottom layer has a considerably reduced thickness.