Anisotropic optical media from laminated island films: theory

Artificial anisotropic media are studied theoretically by utilizing the resonance absorption of metallic island films. The optical anisotropy, such as in polychroism and in birefringence, has been investigated for novel laminated multilayers consisting of inhomogeneous metallic island layers and homogeneous glass layers. The magnitude of anisotropy is numerically evaluated as a function of the nonspherical shape and the spatially anisotropic distribution of islands in the metallic layers. We also present numerical results for highly efficient optical polarizers at visible wavelengths.