ABSTRACT
Correctly modeling multilayered structures of plane or corrugated interfaces is important for practical grating design. While many dielectric gratings and corrugated dielectric waveguides are naturally made of several layers, which could be considered as a single-grating interface, are normally covered with some oxide or protecting layer that must be taken into account in some cases, for example in the near UV region. The T-matrix propagation algorithm has been applied with success to study Bragg multilayer gratings used in X-ray domain. It has also been applied with success in integrated optics to study corrugated waveguides with double corrugation, on top and bottom interfaces. The S-matrix propagation algorithm avoids the loss of digits. The S-matrix propagation algorithm combines the various block matrices so that the exponentially growing functions never appear in the algorithm. The S-matrix propagation algorithm is the simplest, fastest and most-elegant way to analyze thick modulated stacks.
