Angle-tolerant hybrid plasmonic filters for visible light communications

This work presents what we believe is a novel design of a hybrid plasmonic-transmission blue filter for visible light communication systems that employ yellow phosphor-coated blue light-emitting diodes. The proposed filter balances the trade-off between transmission performance and tolerance to variation in angles of incidence (AOIs) while maintaining a low cost with limited complexity design. The designed filter operation is based upon quasi-plasmon mode excitation in a hybrid structure of alternating layers of silver and titanium dioxide over a silica substrate. A primary design approach for a hybrid plasmonic filter of five alternating layers is illustrated in detail. Needle optimization technique is further applied to achieve the required filter performance. The designed filter has an insertion loss of ∼1 dB over a spectral range of 400-485 nm and a minimal close to zero polarization-dependent loss for a wide range of AOI (slightly above 50°). The tolerance of the proposed design against fabrication errors is also tested. The performances of the proposed filters are tested for individual and simultaneous variations from the designed thicknesses, with a ±10% standard deviation from each layer's thickness.