An efficient and wide angle coupling of light to a thin film holographic optical element

Mei-Li Hsieh; Zih Fan Chen; Shiuan-Huei Lin; Shawn-Yu Lin

doi:10.1038/s41598-025-07919-1

An efficient and wide angle coupling of light to a thin film holographic optical element

Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 2;15(1):23419. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-07919-1.

Authors

Mei-Li Hsieh^{1

2}, Zih Fan Chen³, Shiuan-Huei Lin³, Shawn-Yu Lin^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Photonics and College of Photonics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
² Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180, USA.
³ Department of Electro-Physics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Photonics and College of Photonics, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. sylin@rpi.edu.
⁵ Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, 12180, USA. sylin@rpi.edu.

Abstract

In this paper, a new method is proposed to achieve wide-angle and efficient coupling of light into a thin film, holographic optical element (HOE). The coupling is based on diffraction of light (the probe beam) by a holographic element. Analytically, we find, when the probe beam follows a specific angular orbit, Bragg conditions for diffraction can be satisfied and the maximum diffraction efficiency expected. As an experimental test of the proposed idea, such a HOE device has been successfully realized. Our result indicates that a highly efficient diffraction (> 80%) can be achieved for a broad range of light incident angle when the angle is along the designed angular orbit. This finding would open up a new possibility for concentrated solar panel application that is both efficient, low cost, and for a broad incident angle of sunlight.

Keywords: Diffractive optics; Holographic optical elements; Volume gratings.

Abstract

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