Multifunctional metasurfaces enabled by simultaneous and independent control of phase and amplitude for orthogonal polarization states

Abstract

Monochromatic light can be characterized by its three fundamental properties: amplitude, phase, and polarization. In this work, we propose a versatile, transmission-mode all-dielectric metasurface platform that can independently manipulate the phase and amplitude for two orthogonal states of polarization in the visible frequency range. For proof-of-concept experimental demonstration, various single-layer metasurfaces composed of subwavelength-spaced titanium-dioxide nanopillars are designed, fabricated, and characterized to exhibit the ability of polarization-switchable multidimensional light-field manipulation, including polarization-switchable grayscale nanoprinting, nonuniform cylindrical lensing, and complex-amplitude holography. We envision the metasurface platform demonstrated here to open new possibilities toward creating compact multifunctional optical devices for applications in polarization optics, information encoding, optical data storage, and security.

Bilayer‐Metasurface Design, Fabrication, and Functionalization for Full‐Space Light Manipulation

“…Metasurfaces have been employed to precisely control the amplitude, [ 1–5 ] phase, [ 6–11 ] polarization, [ 12–17 ] and frequency [ 18–20 ] of incident light at the subwavelength resolution. Thanks to the powerful point‐to‐point manipulation capabilities at the subwavelength level of metasurfaces, lots of novel optical elements and devices including metalenses, [ 21–27 ] nanoprints, [ 28–34 ] meta‐gratings, [ 35–37 ] vortex‐beam generators, [ 38–41 ] meta‐holograms, [ 42–48 ] and encryption displays [ 49,50 ] have emerged over the past decade. However, due to the limited degrees of freedom of nanostructures, current light manipulation with metasurfaces is usually conducted in either transmission or reflection space while the other half of space is abandoned, which may hinder the improvement of information density and functionality of metasurfaces.…”

“…Metasurfaces have been employed to precisely control the amplitude, [1][2][3][4][5] phase, [6][7][8][9][10][11] polarization, [12][13][14][15][16][17] and frequency [18][19][20] of incident light at the subwavelength resolution. Thanks to the powerful point-to-point manipulation capabilities at the subwavelength level of metasurfaces, lots of novel optical elements and devices including metalenses, [21][22][23][24][25][26][27] nanoprints, [28][29][30][31][32][33][34] metagratings, [35][36][37] vortex-beam generators, [38][39][40][41] meta-holograms, [42][43][44][45][46][47][48] and encryption displays…”

Multifold Integration of Printed and Holographic Meta‐Image Displays Enabled by Dual‐Degeneracy

“…Benefiting from the high information capacity of metasurface-assisted devices, high-density image displays and storages can be readily achieved. Nanoprinting [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] and holographic displaying [26][27][28][29][30][31] are typical representations of metasurfacebased image display. Recently, integrating the functionalities of printed and holographic displaying into a single device has become a research spot, since it can undoubtedly expand the functionality and increase the information capacity of metasurface-based image displays.…”

Broadband Achromatic Metasurfaces for Longwave Infrared Applications

“…Moreover, the dielectric metasurface can be processed at low cost using standard nanofabrication approaches. To date, various metasurfaces with extraordinary functionalities have been demonstrated, such as metalenses [4,[10][11][12][13], metasurface gratings [14,15], orbital angular momentum (OAM) generators [16,17], retroreflectors [18][19][20], metaholograms [21][22][23], structured light generators [24,25], and nonlinear optics [26], covering a wide spectrum from ultraviolet to microwave wavelengths. Recently, metasurfaces have been employed in biosensing applications [27].…”