Subwavelength Quasi-Periodic Array for Infrared Antireflection.

Infrared antireflection of a zinc sulfide (ZnS) surface is important to improve performance of infrared detector systems. In this paper, double-pulse femtosecond laser micro-machining is proposed to fabricate a subwavelength quasi-periodic array (SQA) on ZnS substrate for infrared antireflection. The SQA consisting of approximately 30 million holes within a 2 × 2 cm² area is uniformly formed in a short time. The double-pulse beam can effectively suppress the surface plasma shielding effect, resulting in obtaining a larger array depth. Further, the SQA depth is tunable by changing pulse energy and pulse delay, and can be used to readily regulate the infrared transmittance spectra as well as hydrophobicity. Additionally, the optical field intensity distributions of the SQA simulated by the rigorous coupled-wave analysis method indicate the modulation effect by the array depth. Finally, the infrared imaging quality captured through an infrared window embedded SQA is evaluated by a self-built infrared detection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]