Reflection of stepwise twisted stratified anisotropic optical media

Abstract

Stratified optical films have fascinating optical properties and many important applications. Here we report a theoretical study of stepwise twisted stratified anisotropic optical media. We used Fourier transform to analyze the helical component of the dielectric tensor of the media. We then used the Berreman 4 × 4 method to calculate the reflection spectrum of the media. We discovered that right-handed and left-handed helices could coexist in stepwise twisted layers, which producing a simultaneous reflection of right-handed and left-handed circularly polarized light. This feature can be used to produce films with superior reflection properties, such as high reflectance, broad bandwidth reflection and short wavelength reflection.