Lateral Beam Shifts and Depolarization Upon Oblique Reflection from Dielectric Mirrors

Dielectric mirrors comprising thin-film multilayers are widely used in optical experiments because they can achieve substantially higher reflectance compared to metal mirrors. Here, potential problems are investigated that can arise when dielectric mirrors are used at oblique incidence, in particular for focused beams. It is found that light beams reflected from dielectric mirrors can experience lateral beam shifts, beam-shape distortion, and depolarization, and these effects have a strong dependence on wavelength, incident angle, and incident polarization. Because vendors of dielectric mirrors typically do not share the particular layer structure of their products, several dielectric-mirror stacks are designed and simulated, and then the lateral beam shift from two commercial dielectric mirrors and one coated metal mirror is also measured. This paper brings awareness of the tradeoffs between dielectric mirrors and front-surface metal mirrors in certain optics experiments, and it is suggested that vendors of dielectric mirrors provide information about beam shifts, distortion, and depolarization when their products are used at oblique incidence.