Linewidth study of pixelated aluminum nanowire gratings on polarization performance

Nowadays, nanowire gratings are widely used in various applications such as imaging sensors and high-resolution microscopes. Structure parameters are the main factors that affect the optical performance of the gratings. This work aims to present the influence of the linewidth of pixelated aluminum nanowire gratings with a fixed period on the transmittance and extinction ratio in the visible region. By controlling the exposure doses of electron beam lithography (EBL), different linewidths of pixelated aluminum nanowire gratings with a period of 170 nm were fabricated. The significant effects of linewidth difference on the polarization performance were verified by the simulations of finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) software. The simulations were divided into two parts: the discussion of the pure aluminum without considering oxidation and the discussion of the surface aluminum being oxidized into the aluminum oxide. An optical system was built to evaluate the performance of the fabricated structures. The results show that the trends of the measurement results are consistent with that of simulation. This work will give a guide to the fabrication and evaluation of the nanowire gratings.