Meta-Attention Network Based Spectral Reconstruction with Snapshot Near-Infrared Metasurface.

Near-infrared (NIR) spectral information is important for detecting and analyzing material compositions. However, snapshot NIR spectral imaging systems still pose significant challenges owing to the lack of high-performance NIR filters and bulky setups, preventing effective encoding and integration with mobile devices. This study introduces a snapshot spectral imaging system that employs a compact NIR metasurface featuring 25 distinct C4 symmetry structures. Benefitting from the sufficient spectral variety and low correlation coefficient among these structures, center-wavelength accuracy of 0.05 nm and full width at half maximum accuracy of 0.13 nm are realized. The system maintains good performance within an incident angle of 1°. A novel meta-attention network prior iterative denoising reconstruction (MAN-IDR) algorithm is developed to achieve high-quality NIR spectral imaging. By leveraging the designed metasurface and MAN-IDR, the NIR spectral images, exhibiting precise textures, minimal artifacts in the spatial dimension, and little crosstalk between spectral channels, are reconstructed from a single grayscale recording image. The proposed NIR metasurface and MAN-IDR hold great promise for further integration with smartphones and drones, guaranteeing the adoption of NIR spectral imaging in real-world scenarios such as aerospace, health diagnostics, and machine vision.

Single-shot 3D imaging with point cloud projection based on metadevice.

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging is a crucial information acquisition technology for light detection, autonomous vehicles, gesture recognition, machine vision, and other applications. Metasurface, as a subwavelength scale two-dimensional array, offers flexible control of optical wavefront owing to abundant design freedom. Metasurfaces are promising for use as optical devices because they have large field of view and powerful functionality. In this study, we propose a flat optical device based on a single-layer metasurface to project a coded point cloud in the Fourier space and explore a sophisticated matching algorithm to achieve 3D reconstruction, offering a complete technical roadmap for single-shot detection. We experimentally demonstrate that the depth accuracy of our system is smaller than 0.24 mm at a measurement distance of 300 mm, indicating the feasibility of the submillimetre measurement platform. Our method can pave the way for practical applications such as surface shape detection, gesture recognition, and personal authentication.

Spectrum dispersion element based on the metasurface with parabolic phase.

New kinds of dispersion elements are required for the minimization of the spectrometers. Metasurfaces offer new methods for a novel type of spectrometers due to their ultra-thin property and great ability to manipulate the electromagnetic field. Here, we propose and demonstrate a spectral modulated metasurface as a miniaturized dispersion element that possesses parabolic phase profile. Different wavelengths of the incident light can be dispersed to different spatial positions due to the accumulation of the dynamic phase varies with the wavelengths from metasurface. Detailed theoretical spectrum dispersion ability is analyzed and experimental demonstration is achieved. The polarization conversion efficiency is high, which is promising to be used in practical applications. Such metasurface provides a new and simple way to design dispersion devices and has the potential to be used in spectrometers, variable filters, spectrum tomography, etc.

Basis function approach for diffractive pattern generation with Dammann vortex metasurfaces.

In mathematics, general functions can be decomposed into a linear combination of basis functions. This principle can be used for creating an infinite number of distinct geometric patterns based on a finite number of basis patterns. Here, we propose a Dammann vortex metasurface (DVM) for optically generating an array of diverse, diffraction-multiplexed vortex patterns, based on three custom-defined basis patterns. The proposed DVM, with its capability of quantitatively correlating phase and intensity distribution in different diffraction orders, opens up doors for various applications including orbital angular momentum encryptions and quantum entanglement.

Single Pixel Imaging Key for Holographic Encryption Based on Spatial Multiplexing Metasurface.

Compared with the traditional holographic technology, metasurface holography is a promising technology due to the large field angle and high spatial resolution. Thanks to the precise control of phase, amplitude, polarization and so on, metasurface holography provides a flexible platform for light modulation, optical encryption and so on. Besides, the process of image reconstruction by single pixel imaging is similar to a form of encoding and decoding, which is realized by calculating the correlation between a series of modulation patterns and their corresponding intensity signals. In this work, an optical encryption scheme is proposed based on spatial multiplexing metasurface, which depends on the combination of holographic technology and single pixel imaging technology. In the encryption scheme, the image transmitted by single pixel imaging based on metasurface is used as the addressing key of holography. Besides, illuminating different positions of the metasurface can generate different holographic reconstructed images, and there is 50% information overlapped between adjacent sub-holograms. This work makes use of the spatial multiplexing property of metasurface, which can complete different functions, paving the way for the application in the field of optical imaging encryption and information security.

Active multiband varifocal metalenses based on orbital angular momentum division multiplexing.

Metalenses as miniature flat lenses exhibit a substantial potential in replacing traditional optical component. Although the metalenses have been intensively explored, their functions are limited by poor active ability, narrow operating band and small depth of field (DOF). Here, we show a dielectric metalens consisting of TiO2 nanofins array with ultrahigh aspect ratio to realize active multiband varifocal function. Regulating the orbital angular momentum (OAM) by the phase assignment covering the 2π range, its focal lengths can be switched from 5 mm to 35 mm. This active optical multiplexing uses the physical properties of OAM channels to selectively address and decode the vortex beams. The multiband capability and large DOFs with conversion efficiency of 49% for this metalens are validated for both 532 nm and 633 nm, and the incidence wavelength can further change the focal lengths. This non-mechanical tunable metalens demonstrates the possibility of active varifocal metalenses.

Planar chiral metasurfaces with maximal and tunable chiroptical response driven by bound states in the continuum.

Optical metasurfaces with high quality factors (Q-factors) of chiral resonances can boost substantially light-matter interaction for various applications of chiral response in ultrathin, active, and nonlinear metadevices. However, current approaches lack the flexibility to enhance and tune the chirality and Q-factor simultaneously. Here, we suggest a design of chiral metasurface supporting bound state in the continuum (BIC) and demonstrate experimentally chiroptical responses with ultra-high Q-factors and near-perfect circular dichroism (CD = 0.93) at optical frequencies. We employ the symmetry-reduced meta-atoms with high birefringence supporting winding elliptical eigenstate polarizations with opposite helicity. It provides a convenient way for achieving the maximal planar chirality tuned by either breaking in-plane structure symmetry or changing illumination angle. Beyond linear CD, we also achieved strong near-field enhancement CD and near-unitary nonlinear CD in the same planar chiral metasurface design with circular eigen-polarization. Sharply resonant chirality realized in planar metasurfaces promises various practical applications including chiral lasers and chiral nonlinear filters.

Atomic Layer Assembly Based on Sacrificial Templates for 3D Nanofabrication.

Three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures have attracted widespread attention in physics, chemistry, engineering sciences, and biology devices due to excellent functionalities which planar nanostructures cannot achieve. However, the fabrication of 3D nanostructures is still challenging at present. Reliable fabrication, improved controllability, and multifunction integration are desired for further applications in commercial devices. In this review, a powerful fabrication method to realize 3D nanostructures is introduced and reviewed thoroughly, which is based on atomic layer deposition assisted 3D assembly through various sacrificial templates. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive overview of 3D nanofabrication based on atomic layer assembly (ALA) in multifarious sacrificial templates for 3D nanostructures and to present recent advancements, with the ultimate aim to further unlock more potential of this method for nanodevice applications.

Arbitrary amplitude and phase control in visible by dielectric metasurface.

Metasurfaces have been widely studied for arbitrary manipulation of the amplitude, phase and polarization of a field at the sub-wavelength scale. However, realizing a high efficiency metasurface with simultaneous and independent control of the amplitude and phase in visible remains a challenge. In this work, an ultrathin single-cell dielectric metasurface which can modulate arbitrary complex amplitude in transmission mode is proposed. The amplitude is controlled by adjusting the dipoles and quadrupoles by tuning the geometric size, while the phase is manipulated based on the Pancharatnam-Berry phase by rotating the meta-atom. Complex amplitude fields for generating holographic images and structure light are utilized to verify the reliability of the proposed structure. It has been experimentally demonstrated that the quality of holographic image of complex-amplitude hologram encoded on the proposed metasurface is better than that of phase-only holograms and verified by simulation that complex structure light can be generated by the proposed structure. Our work expands the superior limits of various applications, including arbitrary beam shaping, 3D biological imaging, optical computing, and optics-on-chip devices.

Generation of Airy beam arrays in real and K spaces based on a dielectric metasurface.

Airy beams are widely used in various optical devices and optical experiments owing to their unique characteristics such as self-acceleration, self-recovery, and non-diffraction. Here we designed and demonstrated a metasurface capable of encoding two phase distributions independently in dual circular polarization channels. We experimentally observed the generated Airy beam arrays loaded on the metasurface in the real and K spaces. Compared with the traditional method, such method provides a more efficient solution to generate large capacity Airy beam arrays with switchable working modes in the broadband spectrum. The results may pave the way for the integration and miniaturization of micro-nano devices and provide a platform for information processing, particle manipulation, space-time optical wave packets, and Airy lasers.

All-dielectric bifocal isotropic metalens for a single-shot hologram generation device.

Planar metalenses are regarded as promising functional nanodevices because of their lightweight, nano-resolution properties, and, therefore, they can serve as versatile platforms for imaging and Fourier transforming. Here, we demonstrate a meta-device that functions as an isotropic bifocal all-dielectric Huygens' metalens to realize nanoscale real-time coaxial digital hologram generation. We design an isotropic bifocal metalens for micro/nano hologram recording, and the metalens utilizes the complete region compared to a previously reported interleaved multifocal metalens scheme. In addition, the hologram generation does not depend on complex polarization conversion, thereby improving the practical efficiency. For high-fidelity reconstruction, compressive reconstruction is utilized to remove twin-image and zero-order items and to suppress noise. Such concept would be extended to white-light achromatic meta-holography and three-dimensional micro/nano in vivo incoherent super-resolution imaging under subwavelength modulation.