Shannon’s entropy and structural complexity of random antireflective nanostructures on fused silica surfaces

Subhasree Srenevas; Menelaos K. Poutous

doi:10.1117/12.2676013

3 October 2023 Shannon’s entropy and structural complexity of random antireflective nanostructures on fused silica surfaces

Subhasree Srenevas, Menelaos K. Poutous

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12653, Nanoengineering: Fabrication, Properties, Optics, Thin Films, and Devices XX; 126530C (2023) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2676013
Event: SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering, 2023, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Over the last decade various researchers have demonstrated optical transmission enhancement for fused silica substrate surfaces using random antireflective structures (rARS). The nano-structured surfaces effectively redirect incident light in the axial transmission direction, thus nearly eliminating Fresnel reflectivity. To quantify relations between the random surface nano-structures and optical performance, statistical analysis of surface heights (roughness) is often used, which can predict scatter but not axial transmission enhancement. The alternate analysis method, using an effective-medium approximation for the surface layer, can predict transmission enhancement using an average refractive index but it fails to determine angular scatter. We characterized rARS surfaces by employing Shannon's entropy, to quantify their randomness through complexity. The objective is to construct a figure-of-merit by studying the distribution, organization, and population density of the nanostructures that result in various scales of reflectivity suppression across the 300 nm to 800 nm spectrum. We fabricated various rARS silica surface modifications, which resulted in different measured spectral transmissions, to examine possible relations between the entropy (order) of the transverse profile feature cross-sections and distributions, with the resulting antireflective functionality. We demonstrate that size-based grouping of spatial data correlates specific transverse-feature population orders to specific transmission enhancements based on a diffractive analysis model.

Conference Presentation

(2023) Published by SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Citation Download Citation

Subhasree Srenevas and Menelaos K. Poutous "Shannon’s entropy and structural complexity of random antireflective nanostructures on fused silica surfaces", Proc. SPIE 12653, Nanoengineering: Fabrication, Properties, Optics, Thin Films, and Devices XX, 126530C (3 October 2023); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2676013

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