Wide-angle reflection-mode spatial filtering and splitting with photonic crystal gratings and single-layer rod...

New diffractive optical elements offering a frequency tolerant, very efficient, high-pass and bandpass spatial filtering over a broad range of incidence angles are demonstrated by numerical simulations. The device operates in reflection mode owing to the (nearly) perfect blazing. It relies on two-dimensional square-lattice photonic crystals composed of dielectric rods with simple corrugations at the interface. Similar performance can be obtained with gratings composed of a single rod layer placed in the near field of a metal mirror, indicating a route to geometries that can be easily fabricated with modern nanotechnologies. Also equal splitting between zero and first negative orders can be obtained for incidence-angle variations that are wider than 60°.