Polarization and Holography Recording in Real‐ and k‐Space Based on Dielectric Metasurface

Abstract

The diverse design freedom and mechanisms of metasurfaces motivate the manipulation of polarization in an ultrashort distance with subwavelength resolution and make metasurfaces outperform conventional polarization optical elements. However, in order to enhance the information capability and encryption security of metasurface holograms, polarization manipulation together with multiplexing technologies are still highly desired. Here, a birefringent dielectric metasurface with the capability of encoding a grayscale image in real‐space based on Malus's law by utilizing the inhomogeneous polarization distribution and realizing the reconstruction of a vectorial holographic image in k‐space with the help of the phase profiles of different polarization components of output light is demonstrated. This novel functionality is realized by exploiting the manipulation of polarization and phase of output light simultaneously offered by the dielectric metasurface. The proposed method may enhance the information capability and security level of applications such as the anticounterfeiting and encryption.

Controllable Polarization and Diffraction Modulated Multi‐Functionality Based on Metasurface

“…In addition, our demonstrated method is quite different from other strategies which can accomplish the similar functionality in a multiplexing scheme. [ 43–45 ] In the experiment, the measured transmission efficiency of the sample 1 is 46.7%. And the diffraction efficiency that is defined as the power of the reconstruct holographic images (observed without LP2) divided by the power of the incident light is 9.34%.…”

Ultraspectral Imaging Based on Metasurfaces with Freeform Shaped Meta‐Atoms

“…[16,17] In terms of metasurface design, the shapes and geometries of their unit cells, or metaatoms, play an important role in light control. However, conventional designs are primarily based on parameterized regular-shaped meta-atoms, which conform to the shape of a circle, [2,4] rectangle, [3,7,18] square, [19] or ellipse, [9,11] and are subject to the physical intuition and experience of the designers. These cover only a small fraction of potential design possibilities.…”

Rotational Multiplexing Method Based on Cascaded Metasurface Holography

“…To increase the information capacity of metasurfaces and fully utilize the excellent wavefront modulation ability and numerous DOFs of metasurfaces, several multiplexing methods have been proposed that utilize fundamental light properties or spatial arrangements, such as spatial multiplexing, [ 19 ] polarization multiplexing, [ 20–22 ] angular multiplexing, [ 23,24 ] orbital angular momentum multiplexing, [ 25,26 ] spectral and spatial multiplexing, [ 27,28 ] near‐ and far‐field multiplexing, [ 29,30 ] and nonlinear wavelength multiplexing. [ 31 ] For example, a coherent pixel was proposed based on the coherent superposition of electromagnetic fields, which can be used to obtain angle‐multiplexed scalar or switchable vectorial print images.…”

“…Owing to their unique abilities to modulate the arbitrary phase, amplitude, polarization, wavelength, and orbital angular momentum of light, metasurfaces produce various special optical effects, which lead to a multitude of potential applications such as holography, [5][6][7][8] color printing, [9][10][11] beam shaping, [12] edge detection, [13] generation and measurement of polarization, [14,15] generation and manipulation of THz waves, [16] and optical encryption and anticounterfeiting. [17,18] To increase the information capacity of metasurfaces and fully utilize the excellent wavefront modulation ability and numerous DOFs of metasurfaces, several multiplexing methods have been proposed that utilize fundamental light properties or spatial arrangements, such as spatial multiplexing, [19] polarization multiplexing, [20][21][22] angular multiplexing, [23,24] orbital angular momentum multiplexing, [25,26] spectral and spatial multiplexing, [27,28] near-and far-field multiplexing, [29,30] and nonlinear wavelength multiplexing. [31] For example, a coherent pixel was proposed based on the coherent superposition of electromagnetic fields, which can be used to obtain angle-multiplexed scalar or switchable vectorial print images.…”