Parallel Polarization Illumination with a Multifocal Axicon Metalens for Improved Polarization Imaging

Reconfigurable leaky Fourier surfaces for customized beamforming and scanning

Recently, the metasurface, with full control of electromagnetic wave properties over a deep-subwavelength thin surface, has been widely exploited in radar and communication systems, and is important for next-generation wireless power transfer systems, 6G communications, and other technologies. In these contexts, there are high demands for active metasurface devices with a simple feeding structure, high gain, and full-space beamforming. Here, a multifunctional leaky Fourier surface (LFS) based on a metasurface is proposed to achieve complete control of leaky electromagnetic waves through Fourier engineering. Such LFS directly maps the on-demand electromagnetic functionalities into the profile of a microstrip line with sinusoidal bends by customizing the Fourier components of the leaky surface. In doing so, we have shown several complicated and advanced functionalities, including wideband beam scanning, multiple beam generation with arbitrary gain ratios, omnidirectional scanning, and dual-beam full-space scanning. Our LFS architecture with superior beamforming capabilities is important for next-generation wireless energy, information, and communications systems.

Dual-wavelength multiplexed metasurface holography based on two-photon polymerization lithography

Two-photon polymerization (TPP) lithography can process 3D micro-nano structures with high precision and has wide applications in the fields of micro-optics. Metasurfaces can flexibly control electromagnetic fields at subwavelength scale, achieving functions such as multidimensional multiplexing holography and achromatic imaging. Meta-devices are usually fabricated via EBL-based process, which is complex and difficult to fabricate meta-devices composed of meta-atoms with different heights. Here, we design a color dual-wavelength metasurface hologram without spatial multiplexing. By combining the propagation phase and the geometric phase, the phase response of two wavelengths is achieved in the same polarization state, and the metasurface is prepared using TPP 3D laser printing technology. The experimentally reconstructed images are consistent with theoretical predictions. This not only verifies the feasibility of this 3D printing technology in the preparation of metasurface samples operating in visible band but also provides potential applications in holographic display, optical encryption, anticounterfeiting, and other fields.

Achromatic Full Stokes Polarimetry Metasurface for Full-Color Polarization Imaging in the Visible Range

Metasurfaces provide an ultrathin platform for compact, real-time polarimetry. However, their applications in polychromatic scenes are restricted by narrow operating bandwidths that causes spectral information loss. Here, we demonstrate full-color polarization imaging using an achromatic polarimeter consisting of four polarization-dependent metalenses. Leveraging an intelligent design scheme, we achieve effective arbitrary phase compensation and multiobjective matching with a limited database. This system provides broadband achromaticity across wavelengths from 450 to 650 nm, resulting in a relative bandwidth of approximately 0.364 for full Stokes imaging. Experimental reconstruction errors for wavelengths of 450, 550, and 650 nm are 7.5%, 5.9%, and 3.8%, respectively. Performance is evaluated based on both achromatic bandwidth and crosstalk, with our design achieving three times the performance of the current state-of-the-art. The full-color, full-polarization imaging capability of the device is further validated with a customized object. The proposed scheme advances polarization imaging for practical applications.

Tunable on-chip optical traps for levitating particles based on single-layer metasurface

Optically levitated multiple nanoparticles have emerged as a platform for studying complex fundamental physics such as non-equilibrium phenomena, quantum entanglement, and light-matter interaction, which could be applied for sensing weak forces and torques with high sensitivity and accuracy. An optical trapping landscape of increased complexity is needed to engineer the interaction between levitated particles beyond the single harmonic trap. However, existing platforms based on spatial light modulators for studying interactions between levitated particles suffered from low efficiency, instability at focal points, the complexity of optical systems, and the scalability for sensing applications. Here, we experimentally demonstrated that a metasurface which forms two diffraction-limited focal points with a high numerical aperture (∼0.9) and high efficiency (31 %) can generate tunable optical potential wells without any intensity fluctuations. A bistable potential and double potential wells were observed in the experiment by varying the focal points' distance, and two nanoparticles were levitated in double potential wells for hours, which could be used for investigating the levitated particles' nonlinear dynamics, thermal dynamics and optical binding. This would pave the way for scaling the number of levitated optomechanical devices or realizing paralleled levitated sensors.

Integrated optical rotation detection scheme for chip-scale atomic magnetometer empowered by silicon-rich SiNx metalens

High-performance atomic magnetometers (AMs) rely on the measurement of optical rotation, which requires a set of bulky polarization optics that limit their applications in scenarios where portability and compactness are necessary. In this study, a miniaturized AM is constructed based on a cubic 87Rb vapor cell and monolithic metalens, which provides an integrated scheme to achieve optical rotation detection induced by the circular birefringence of polarized atoms. The designed metalens achieves polarization splitting with deflection angles of ±10∘ and focusing with efficiencies of approximately 30% for orthogonal linear polarizations. The sensitivity of our compact device is ∼30 fT/Hz1/2 with a dynamic range of around ±1.45 nT. We envision that the presented approach paves the way for the chip integration of emerging atomic devices, which are in demand for applications such as biomagnetic imaging and portable atomic gyroscopes.

Multi-wavelength structured light based on metasurfaces for 3D imaging

Structured light projection provides a promising approach to achieving fast and non-contact three-dimensional (3D) imaging. The resolution is a crucial index that represents security and accuracy in applications such as face recognition and robot vision. It depends on the density of dots in the projection. However, further improving the density of dots in the current system must be at the cost of speed or volume. Here, an all-dielectric ultra-thin metasurface is designed and fabricated to project a multi-wavelength dot array. The density of dots is improved because projected dots with different wavelengths fill the gaps with each other. The experimental results demonstrate that the multi-wavelength projection improves the resolution of 3D imaging. Furthermore, the multi-wavelength system is beneficial to measuring a surface with varying colors. The approach has the potential to achieve a new generation of high-resolution systems for tiny fluctuations and colorful 3D imaging in dark environments.

Circular-target-style bifocal zoom metalens

Optical zoom plays an important role in realizing high-quality image magnification, especially in photography, telescopes, microscopes, etc. Compared to traditional bulky zoom lenses, the high versatility and flexibility of metalens design provide opportunities for modern electronic and photonic systems with demands for miniature and lightweight optical zoom. Here, we propose an ultra-thin, lightweight and compact bifocal zoom metalens, which consists of a conventional circular sub-aperture and a sparse annular sub-aperture with different focal lengths. The imaging resolutions of such single zoom metalens with 164 lp/mm and 117 lp/mm at magnifications of 1× and 2× have been numerically and experimentally demonstrated, respectively. Furthermore, clear zoom images of a dragonfly wing pattern have been also achieved using this zoom metalens, showing its distinctive aspect in biological imaging. Our results provide an approach for potential applications in integrated optical systems, miniaturized imaging devices, and wearable devices.

Polychromatic full-polarization control in mid-infrared light

Objects with different shapes, materials and temperatures can emit distinct polarizations and spectral information in mid-infrared band, which provides a unique signature in the transparent window for object identification. However, the crosstalk among various polarization and wavelength channels prevents from accurate mid-infrared detections at high signal-to-noise ratio. Here, we report full-polarization metasurfaces to break the inherent eigen-polarization constraint over the wavelengths in mid-infrared. This recipe enables to select arbitrary orthogonal polarization basis at individual wavelength independently, therefore alleviating the crosstalk and efficiency degradation. A six-channel all-silicon metasurface is specifically presented to project focused mid-infrared light to distinct positions at three wavelengths, each with a pair of arbitrarily chosen orthogonal polarizations. An isolation ratio of 117 between neighboring polarization channels is experimentally recorded, exhibiting detection sensitivity one order of magnitude higher than existing infrared detectors. Remarkably, the high aspect ratio ~30 of our meta-structures manufactured by deep silicon etching technology at temperature -150 °C guarantees the large and precise phase dispersion control over a broadband from 3 to 4.5 μm. We believe our results would benefit the noise-immune mid-infrared detections in remote sensing and space-to-ground communications.

Inverse design of a near-infrared metalens with an extended depth of focus based on double-process genetic algorithm optimization

Metalens with extended depth of focus (EDOF) can extend the mapping area of the image, which leads to novel applications in imaging and microscopy. Since there are still some disadvantages for existing EDOF metalenses based on forward design, such as asymmetric point spread function (PSF) and non-uniformly distributed focal spot, which impair the quality of images, we propose a double-process genetic algorithm (DPGA) optimization to inversely design the EDOF metalens for addressing these drawbacks. By separately adopting different mutation operators in successive two genetic algorithm (GA) processes, DPGA exhibits significant advantages in searching for the ideal solution in the whole parameter space. Here, the 1D and 2D EDOF metalenses operating at 980 nm are separately designed via this method, and both of them exhibit significant depth of focus (DOF) improvement to that of conventional focusing. Furthermore, a uniformly distributed focal spot can be maintained well, which can guarantee stable imaging quality along the longitudinal direction. The proposed EDOF metalenses have considerable potential applications in biological microscopy and imaging, and the scheme of DPGA can be promoted to the inverse design of other nanophotonics devices.

Metalens for generating multi-channel polarization-wavelength multiplexing metasurface holograms

We demonstrate multi-channel metasurface holograms, where the pixels of holographic images are represented by the focal points of metalens, leading to the nanoscale resolution. The required phase profiles are implemented by elaborately arranging the hybrid all-dielectric meta-atoms with specific orientation angles. For verification, two-channel single-color images are reconstructed on the focal plane of the metalens by polarization control. Alternatively, three-channel color holograms are exhibited by manipulating the incident wavelengths. More uniquely, the metalens can be further engineered to generate polarization-wavelength multiplexing color holograms in six channels. Our work provides an effective approach to reconstructing holographic images and enables potential applications including color display, information engineering, and optical encryption.

All-Dielectric Metasurface Lenses for Achromatic Imaging Applications

Metasurface can use artificial microstructures to manipulate electromagnetic waves more accurately and flexibly. All-dielectric metalens have a wide range of materials and low cost so it has a wide application prospect. Herein, we propose a all-dielectric achromatic metalens built with Si as the structural unit that can operate over a broadband of wavelengths in the visible region. It controls the wavefront of light through the Pancharatnam-Berry phase and propagation phase to eliminate the chromatic aberration. Meanwhile, we also use Gerchberg-Saxton algorithm and its improved algorithm to iterate over multiple design wavelengths and obtain holographic phases suitable for broadband. Thus, both the metalenses and holographic metasurfaces can achieve achromatic broadband in the visible light range, which provides a new method for the development of meta-optical imaging devices.

Dielectric metalens for miniaturized imaging systems: progress and challenges

Lightweight, miniaturized optical imaging systems are vastly anticipated in these fields of aerospace exploration, industrial vision, consumer electronics, and medical imaging. However, conventional optical techniques are intricate to downscale as refractive lenses mostly rely on phase accumulation. Metalens, composed of subwavelength nanostructures that locally control light waves, offers a disruptive path for small-scale imaging systems. Recent advances in the design and nanofabrication of dielectric metalenses have led to some high-performance practical optical systems. This review outlines the exciting developments in the aforementioned area whilst highlighting the challenges of using dielectric metalenses to replace conventional optics in miniature optical systems. After a brief introduction to the fundamental physics of dielectric metalenses, the progress and challenges in terms of the typical performances are introduced. The supplementary discussion on the common challenges hindering further development is also presented, including the limitations of the conventional design methods, difficulties in scaling up, and device integration. Furthermore, the potential approaches to address the existing challenges are also deliberated.

Simulation for multiwavelength large-aperture all-silicon metalenses in long-wave infrared

Long-wave infrared imaging systems are widely used in the field of environmental monitoring and imaging guidance. As the core components, the long-wave infrared lenses suffer the conditions of less available materials, difficult processing, large volume and mass. Metalens composed of sub-wavelength structures is one of the most potential candidates to achieve a lightweight and planar optical imaging systems. Meanwhile, it is essential to obtain large-aperture infrared lenses with high power and high resolution. However, it is difficult to use the finite-difference time-domain method to simulate a large-aperture metalens with the diameter of 201 mm due to the large amount of computational memory and computational time required. Here, to solve the mentioned problem, we firstly propose a simulation method for designing a large-aperture metalens, which combines the finite-difference time-domain algorithm and diffraction integration. The finite-difference time-domain algorithm is used to simulate the meta-atom's transmitted complex amplitude and the one-dimensional simplification of the diffraction integral is to calculate the focused field distributions of the designed metalens. Furthermore, the meta-atom spatial multiplexing is applied to design the all-silicon metalenses with the aperture of 201 mm to realize dual-wavelength (10 and 11μm) achromatic focusing, super anomalous dispersion focusing and super normal dispersion focusing. The designed metalenses are numerically confirmed, which reveal the feasibility of all-silicon sub-wavelength structures to accomplish the multiwavelength dispersion control. The designed all-silicon metalenses have the advantage of lightweight and compact. The proposed method is effective for the development of large-aperture imaging systems in the long-wave infrared.

Generation of high-uniformity and high-resolution Bessel beam arrays through all-dielectric metasurfaces

Bessel beam arrays are progressively attracting attention in recent years due to their remarkable non-diffracting nature and parallel manipulation capabilities in diverse applications. However, the poor phase discretization of conventional approaches such as spatial light modulators leads to low numerical aperture (NA) beam arrays due to the limitation imposed by the Nyquist sampling theorem and poor uniformity of the beam intensity. The key contribution of this study is to experimentally demonstrate the generation of high-uniformity and high-resolution Bessel beam arrays by utilizing all-dielectric metasurfaces. This is attained by optimizing the design of the supercell of a Dammann grating, particularly decreasing each supercell of the grating to a proper size. We demonstrate a 4 × 4 array of Bessel beams with a subwavelength transverse dimension (570 nm, ∼0.9λ) and a large NA of 0.4 for each beam in the array, while maintaining a relatively high uniformity intensity (52.40%) for the array. Additionally, the Bessel beam arrays are generated in a broadband range through the proposed all-dielectric metasurfaces. Our results are of great significance and particularly useful for applications of metasurface-based Bessel beam arrays in multidisciplinary fields such as laser fabrication, biomedical imaging, data storage, and multi-particle trapping.

Non-diffracting beam generated from a photonic integrated circuit based axicon-like lens

We demonstrate an on-chip silicon-on-insulator (SOI) device to generate a non-diffracting beam of ≈850 µm length from a diffractive axicon-like lens etched using a low resolution (200 nm feature size, 250 nm gap) deep-ultraviolet lithographic fabrication. The device consists of circular gratings with seven stages of 1x2 multimode interferometers. We present a technique to apodize the gratings azimuthally by breaking up the circles into arcs which successfully increased the penetration depth in the gratings from ≈5 µm to ≈60 µm. We characterize the device's performance by coupling 1300±50 nm swept source laser in to the chip from the axicon and measuring the out-coupled light from a grating coupler. Further, we also present the implementation of balanced homodyne detection method for the spectral characterization of the device and show that the position of the output lobe of the axicon does not change significantly with wavelength.

Vectorial Holograms with Spatially Continuous Polarization Distributions

Metasurface-based holography presents opportunities for applications that include optical displays, data storage, and optical encryption. Holograms that control polarization are sometimes referred to as vectorial holograms. Most studies on this topic have concerned devices that display different images when illuminated with different polarization states. Fewer studies have demonstrated holographic images whose polarization varies spatially, i.e., as a function of the position within the image. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a vectorial hologram that produces an image with a spatially continuous distribution of polarization states, for the first time to our knowledge. An unlimited number of polarization states can be achieved within the image. Furthermore, the holographic image and its polarization map (polarization vs position in image) are independent. The same image can be thus encoded with different polarization maps. As far as we know, our approach is conceptually new. We anticipate that it could broaden the application scope of metasurface holography.

Recent Progress on Ultrathin Metalenses for Flat Optics

As technology advances, electrical devices such as smartphones have become more and more compact, leading to a demand for the continuous miniaturization of optical components. Metalenses, ultrathin flat optical elements composed of metasurfaces consisting of arrays of subwavelength optical antennas, provide a method of meeting those requirements. Moreover, metalenses have many other distinctive advantages including aberration correction, active tunability, and semi-transparency, compared to their conventional refractive and diffractive counterparts. Therefore, over the last decade, great effort has been focused on developing metalenses to investigate and broaden the capabilities of metalenses for integration into future applications. Here, we discuss recent progress on metalenses including their basic design principles and notable characteristics such as aberration correction, tunability, and multifunctionality.