Substrate mode hologram for optical interconnects

A novel method of substrate mode hologram (SMH) design and fabrication is presented. The coupling between a homogeneous plane wave and an arbitrary free propagating wave is achieved via a total internally reflected (TIR) wave. The input slanted plane grating, recorded in an orthochromatic holographic medium, accomplishes the homogeneous plane wave to TIR wave coupling. The TIR wave is transformed to the free propagating wave by the output aperiodic aplanar inhomogeneous grating recorded in a panchromatic holographic medium. Aberration-free conversion between the incident plane wave and the Gaussian wave is reported for coupling efficiency of 57%.