Normal vector method for convergence improvement using the RCWA for crossed gratings.

The rigorous coupled wave analysis (RCWA) is a widely used method for simulating diffraction from periodic structures. Since its recognized formulation by Moharam [J. Opt.

Rigorous analysis of shadowing effects in blazed transmission gratings.

Blazed transmission gratings have become crucial components in many hybrid optical systems. Shadowing effects are known to occur at their passive blaze facets, which may impair the system's efficiency performance. For optical designs, it is desirable to have a simple but accurate description of this phenomenon.

Area-coded effective medium structures, a new type of grating design.

We propose a new way to design gratings with desired diffraction properties by using subwavelength feature sizes perpendicular to the ordinary superwavelength grating period. This is different from well-known one-dimensional binary-blazed gratings that use a structuring along the grating period and thus opens new flexibility in generating arbitrary effective-index distributions in the direction of the grating period. Since the subwavelength features form contiguous areas, they are called area-coded effective medium structures (ACES).