We report on the fabrication of metasurface phase plates consisting of gold nanoantenna arrays that generate Laguerre-Gaussian modes from a circularly polarized Gaussian input beam. The corresponding helical phase profiles with radial discontinuities are encoded in the metasurfaces by the orientation of the nanoantennas. A common-path interferometer is used to determine the orbital angular momentum of the generated beams. Additionally, we employ digital holography to record detailed phase profiles of the Laguerre-Gaussian modes. Experiments with different laser sources demonstrate the broadband operation of the metasurfaces.
In the past few years, carpet cloaking attracted interests because of its feasibility at optical frequencies and potential in stealth technologies. Metasurfaces have been proposed as a method to engineer ultra-thin carpet cloaking surfaces due to their abilities to manipulate wavefronts, polarization, and phase at subwavelength scale. However, achieving broadband carpet cloaking with a significant bandwidth is one of the key remaining challenges for metasurface designs. To date, broadband carpet cloaking based on metasurfaces has not been achieved and cloaking is limited to discrete wavelength…
We present terahertz (THz) metasurfaces based on aligned rectangular graphene patches placed on top of a dielectric layer to convert the transmitted linearly polarized waves to circular or elliptical polarized radiation. Our results lead to the design of an ultrathin broadband THz quarter-wave plate. In addition, ultrathin metasurfaces based on arrays of L-shaped graphene periodic patches are demonstrated to achieve broadband cross-polarization transformation in reflection and transmission. The proposed metasurface designs have tunable responses and are envisioned to become the building blocks…
Impedance mismatch between free space and absorptive materials is a fundamental issue plaguing the pursue of high-efficiency light absorption. In this work, we design and numerically demonstrate a type of non-resonant impedance-matched optical metasurfaces exhibiting ultra-broadband reflectionless absorption based on anomalous Brewster effect, which are donated as optical Brewster metasurfaces here. Interestingly, such Brewster metasurfaces exhibit a unique type of extreme angular-asymmetry: a transition between perfect transparency and perfect absorption appears when the sign of the incident …
Frequency conversion of light can be dramatically enhanced using high quality factor ($Q$-factor) cavities. Unfortunately, the achievable conversion efficiencies and conversion bandwidths are fundamentally limited by the time-bandwidth limit of the cavity, restricting their use in frequency conversion of ultrashort pulses. Here, we propose and numerically demonstrate sum-frequency generation based frequency conversion using a metasurface-based cavity configuration that could overcome this limitation. The proposed experimental configuration takes use of the spatially dispersive responses of per…
The nonlinear metamaterials have been shown to provide nonlinear properties with high nonlinear conversion efficiency and in a myriad of light manipulation. Here we study terahertz generation from nonlinear metasurface consisting of single layer nanoscale split-ring resonator array. The terahertz generation due to optical rectification by the second-order nonlinearity of the split-ring resonator is investigated by a time-domain implementation of the hydrodynamic model for electron dynamics in metal. The results show that the nonlinear metasurface enables us to generate broadband terahertz radi…
An explicit time-domain finite-difference technique for modelling zero-thickness Huygens' metasurfaces based on Generalized Sheet Transition Conditions (GSTCs), is proposed and demonstrated using full-wave simulations. The Huygens' metasurface is modelled using electric and magnetic surface susceptibilities, which are found to follow a double-Lorentz dispersion profile. To solve zero-thickness Huygens' metasurface problems for general broadband excitations, the double-Lorentz dispersion profile is combined with GSTCs, leading to a set of first-order differential fields equations in time-domain…
Hybrid photonic structures of plasmonic metasurfaces coupled to atomically thin semiconductors have emerged as a versatile platform for strong light-matter interaction, supporting both strong coupling and parametric nonlinearities. However, designing optimized nonlinear hybrid metasurfaces is a complex task, as the multiple parameters' contribution to the nonlinear response is elusive. Here we present a simple yet powerful strategy for maximizing the nonlinear response of the hybrid structures based on evolutionary inverse design of the metasurface's near-field enhancement around the excitonic…
We demonstrate a broadband, polarization independent, omnidirectional absorber based on a metallic metasurface architecture, which accomplishes greater than 90% absorptance in the visible and near-infrared range of the solar spectrum, and exhibits low emissivity at mid- and far-infrared wavelengths. The complex unit cell of the metasurface solar absorber consists of eight pairs of gold nano-resonators that are separated from a gold ground plane by a thin silicon dioxide spacer. Our experimental measurements reveal high-performance absorption over a wide range of incidence angles for both s- an…
Light trapping in planar ultrathin-film solar cells is limited due to a small number of optical modes available in the thin-film slab. A nanostructured thin-film design could surpass this limit by providing broadband increase in the local density of states in a subwavelength volume and maintaining efficient coupling of light. Here we report a broadband metasurface design, enabling efficient and broadband absorption enhancement by direct coupling of incoming light to resonant modes of subwavelength-scale Mie nanoresonators defined in the thin-film active layer. Absorption was investigated both …
The miniaturization of pixel is essential for achieving high-resolution, planar, compact-size focal plane arrays (FPAs); however, the resulted increase in the optical crosstalk between adjacent pixels leads to serious drawback and trade-off. In the current work, we design and propose an efficient broadband polarization-insensitive all-dielectric metasurface lens array-based focal plane arrays (FPA) operating in the mid-wave infrared (MWIR). High focusing efficiency over 0.85 with superior optical crosstalk performance is achieved. We demonstrated that optical crosstalk can be reduced to low le…
In view of the fact that most invisibility devices focus on linear polarization cloaking and that the characteristics of mid infrared cloaking are rarely studied, we propose a cross circularly polarized invisibility carpet cloaking device in the mid infrared band. Based on the Pancharatnam Berry phase principle, the unit cells with the cross circular polarization gradient phase were carefully designed and constructed into a metasurface. In order to achieve tunable cross circular polarization carpet cloaks, a phase change material is introduced into the design of the unit structure. When the ph…
Reconstruction of light profiles with amplitude and phase information, called holography, is an attractive optical technique to display three-dimensional images. Due to essential requirements for an ideal hologram, subwavelength control of both amplitude and phase is crucial. Nevertheless, traditional holographic devices have suffered from their limited capabilities of incomplete modulation in both amplitude and phase of visible light. Here, we propose a novel metasurface that is capable of completely controlling both amplitude and phase profiles of visible light independently with subwaveleng…
Surfaces patterned with arrays of quasi-periodic air holes having conical depth profile have been studied for their effectiveness in suppressing air-substrate reflection in the wavelength range of 450-1350 nm (limited by our measurement). The role of quasi-periodic air-hole pattern, depth of holes and launch angle on the observed antireflection behavior are investigated. The average optical transmittance of the patterned quartz substrate at near normal incidence is more than 97% and reflectance is less than 2%. Patterned quartz surfaces with 450 nm thin graded rarefaction region maintain the a…
Black phosphorus (BP), a relative new plasmonic two-dimensional (2D) material, offers unique photonic and electronic properties. In this work, we propose a new tunable and broadband ultrathin coherent perfect absorber (CPA) device operating in the terahertz (THz) frequency range. It is based on a bifacial metasurface made of BP patch periodic arrays separated by a thin dielectric layer. Broadband CPA bandwidth is realized due to the ultrathin thickness of the proposed device and the extraordinary properties of BP. In addition, a substantial modulation between CPA and complete transparency is a…
Subwavelength planar structured interfaces, also known as metasurfaces, are ultra-thin optical elements modulating the amplitude, phase, and polarization of incident light using nanostructures called meta-atoms. The optical properties of such metasurfaces can be controlled across wavelengths by selecting geometries and materials of the meta-atoms. Given recent technological developments in optical device miniaturization, components for beam splitting and beam combining are sought for use within these devices as two quintessential components of every optical setup. However, realizing such devic…
Ultra-BroadBand Electromagnetic Control Using a Triple Circular Ring Metasurface: Surface Wave Propagation, Beam Steering, and RCS reduction (50-100 Ghz)
Sylhet Engineering College（锡尔赫特工程学院）；North South University（北南大学）；Mahdy Research Academy（马迪研究院）
We demonstrate a novel scheme to dramatically enhance both the second- and third-harmonic generation in a graphene-insulator-graphene metasurface. The key underlying feature of our approach is the existence of a double-resonance phenomenon, namely the metasurface is designed to possess fundamental plasmon resonances at both the fundamental frequency and the higher harmonic. In particular, this dual resonant field enhancement at the two optical frequencies, combined with a favorable spatial overlap of the optical near-fields, lead to the increase of the generated higher harmonic by several orde…
Ultrathin metasurfaces have recently emerged as promising materials to enable novel, flat optical components and surface-confined, miniature photonic devices. However, experimental realization of high-performance metasurfaces at visible frequencies has been a significant challenge due to high plasmonic losses and difficulties in high-uniformity nanofabrication. Here, we propose a highly-efficient yet simple metasurface design comprising of single gradient antenna as unit cell. We demonstrate visible broadband (450 - 850 nm) anomalous reflection and spectrum splitting with 85% conversion effici…
We present freestanding metasurfaces operating at optical frequencies with a total thickness of only 40$\,$nm. The metasurfaces are fabricated by focused ion beam milling of nanovoids in a carbon film followed by thermal evaporation of gold and plasma ashing of the carbon film. As a first example, we demonstrate a metasurface lens based on resonant V-shaped nanovoids with a focal length of 1$\,$mm. The second example is a metasurface phase-plate consisting of appropriately oriented rectangular nanovoids that transforms a Gaussian input beam into a Laguerre-Gaussian ${LG_{-1,0}}$ mode.
We have designed and experimentally realized an ultra-broadband acoustic metasurface (UBAM) capable of going beyond the intrinsic limitation of bandwidth in existing designs of optical/acoustical metasurfaces. Both the numerical and experimental results demonstrate that the UBAM made of subwavelength gratings can manipulate the reflected phase-front within a bandwidth larger than 2 octaves. A simple physical model based on the phased array theory is developed for interpreting this extraordinary phenomenon as well as obtaining deeper insight to the underlying physics of our design. We anticipat…
We demonstrate the broadband operation of a switchable terahertz quarter-wave plate achieved with an active metasurface employing vanadium dioxide. For this purpose, we utilize anisotropically deformed checkerboard structures, which present broadband characteristics compatible with deep modulation. Moreover, the metasurface is integrated with a current injection circuit to achieve state switching; this injection circuit can also be employed to monitor the electric state of vanadium dioxide. We estimate the Stokes parameters derived from the experimental transmission spectra of the fabricated m…
Meta-optics based on optically-resonant dielectric nanostructures is a rapidly developing research field with many potential applications. Halide perovskite metasurfaces emerged recently as a novel platform for meta-optics, and they offer unique opportunities for control of light in optoelectronic devices. Here we employ the generalized Kerker conditions to overlap electric and magnetic Mie resonances in each meta-atom of MAPbBr3 perovskite metasurface and demonstrate broadband suppression of reflection down to 4%. We reveal also that metasurface nanostructuring is also beneficial for the enha…
Ultrafast nanophotonics is an emerging research field aimed at the development of nanodevices capable of light modulation with unprecedented speed. A promising approach exploits the optical nonlinearity of nanostructured materials (either metallic or dielectric) to modulate their effective permittivity via interaction with intense ultrashort laser pulses. While the ultrafast temporal dynamics of such nanostructures following photoexcitation has been studied in depth, sub-ps transient spatial inhomogeneities taking place at the nanoscale have been so far almost ignored. Here we theoretically pr…
Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes, carrying orbital angular momentum of light, are critical for important applications such as high-capacity optical communications, super-resolution imaging, and multi-dimensional quantum entanglement. Advanced developments in these applications strongly demand reliable and tunable LG mode laser sources, which, however, do not yet exist. Here, we experimentally demonstrate highly-efficient, highly-pure, broadly-tunable, and topological-charge-controllable LG modes from a Janus optical parametric oscillator (OPO). Janus OPO featuring two-face cavity mode is designed …
Dynamically switchable half-/quarter-wave plates have recently been the focus in the terahertz regime. Conventional design philosophy leads to multilayer metamaterials or narrowband metasurfaces. Here we propose a novel design philosophy and a VO2-metal hybrid metasurface for achieving broadband dynamically switchable half-/quarter-wave plate (HWP/QWP) based on the transition from the overdamped to the underdamped resonance. Results show that, by varying the VO2 conductivity by three orders of magnitude, the proposed metasurface's function can be switched between an HWP with polarization conve…
We present an asymmetric bifacial graphene metasurface to realize tunable and broadband coherent perfect absorption (CPA) at terahertz (THz) frequencies. The proposed design is composed of two dissimilar graphene square patch metasurfaces stacked over an ultrathin dielectric substrate. Nonlinear CPA performance without resorting to optical nonlinearities and amplification are demonstrated based on wave interference phenomena taking place along and inside this subwavelength structure. Broadband asymmetric reflection from opposite directions is obtained in the case of single wave illumination. T…
Dual-polarization control of broadband nonreciprocal thermal radiation by combining local and nonlocal metasurfaces
The University of Hong Kong（香港大学）；State Key Laboratory of Optical Quantum Materials, The University of Hong Kong（香港大学光学量子材料国家重点实验室）；Institute of Engineering Thermophysics, MOE Key Laboratory for Power Machinery and Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学机械工程学院动力机械工程教育部重点实验室工程热物理研究所）；Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore（新加坡国立大学电气与计算机工程系）；Key Laboratory of Terahertz Solid State Technology, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海微系统与信息技术研究所太赫兹固态技术重点实验室）；National Engineering Research Center of Electromagnetic Radiation Control Materials, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学电磁辐射控制材料国家工程研究中心）
To exploit the full potential of the transverse spatial structure of light using the Laguerre-Gaussian basis, it is necessary to control the azimuthal and radial components of the photons. Vortex phase elements are commonly used to generate these modes of light, offering precise control over the azimuthal index but neglect the radially dependent amplitude term which defines their associated corresponding transverse profile. Here we experimentally demonstrate the generation of high purity Laguerre-Gaussian beams with a single step on-axis transformation implemented with a dielectric phase-ampli…
Metasurfaces composed of subwavelength unit cells usually require a large number of unit cells which leads to complicated design and optimization. Aggressive discretization in a metasurface can significantly reduce the number of unit cells within a period, resulting in lower requirement for phase and/or surface impedance coverage. Additionally, the enlarged unit cells will encounter negligible mutual couplings when combined together, hence making straightforward the process of metasurface design. These advantages combine to allow the design of a novel class of metasurfaces which support the hi…
Time-dependent nonlinear media, such as rapidly generated plasmas produced via laser ionization of gases, can increase the energy of individual laser photons and generate tunable high-order harmonic pulses. This phenomenon, known as photon acceleration, has traditionally required extreme-intensity laser pulses and macroscopic propagation lengths. Here, we report on a novel nonlinear material$-$an ultrathin semiconductor metasurface$-$that exhibits efficient photon acceleration at low intensities. We observe a signature nonlinear manifestation of photon acceleration: third-harmonic generation o…
Metamaterials and metasurfaces operating in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) offer a promising route towards next-generation photodetectors and devices for solar energy harvesting. While numerous metamaterials and metasurfaces using metals and semiconductors have been demonstrated, semimetals-based metasurfaces in the vis-NIR range are notably missing. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a broadband metasurface superabsorber based on large area, semimetallic, van der Waals PtSe2 thin films in agreement with electromagnetic simulations. Our results show that PtSe2 is an ultrathin and scalabl…
We discuss the possibility of realizing utlrabroadband omnidirectional absorbers and angularly selective coherent thermal emitters based on properly patterned plasmonic metastructures. Instead of relying on resonant concentration effects that inherently limit the bandwidth, we base our design on the combination of two inherently nonresonant effects: plasmonic Brewster funneling and adiabatic plasmonic focusing. With this approach, we demonstrate compact, broadband absorption and emission spanning terahertz, infrared and optical frequencies, ideal for various energy and defense applications.
We report the characterization of an achromatic focusing metasurface at oblique incident angles. We show that in addition to the inherent off-axis aberrations that occurs due to the hyperbolic phase profile of the metasurface, the focusing performance is significantly degraded due to the meta-atoms' angular dispersion. To obtain insights into how the angular and spectral bandwidth of meta-atoms relate to the metasurface focusing performance, point-dipole models are used which incorporate different aspect's of the meta-atoms' angular response. It is emphasized that despite the meta-atoms being …
Metasurfaces have attracted widespread attention due to an increasing demand of compact and wearable optical devices. For many applications, polarization-insensitive metasurfaces are highly desirable and appear to limit the choice of their constituent elements to isotropic nanostructures. This greatly restricts the degrees of geometric parameters available in designing each nanostructure. Here, we demonstrate a polarization-insensitive metalens using otherwise anisotropic nanofins which offer additional control over the dispersion and phase of the output light. As a result, we can render a met…
Resonant optical phased arrays are a promising way to reach fully reconfigurable metasurfaces in the optical and NIR regimes with low energy consumption, low footprint and high reliability. Continuously tunable resonant structures suffer from inherent drawbacks such as low phase range, amplitude-phase correlation or extreme sensitivity that makes precise control at the individual element level very challenging. In order to bypass these issues, we use 1-bit (binary) control for beam steering for an innovative nano-resonator antenna and explore the theoretical capabilities of such phased arrays.…
We propose the optical trapping of Rayleigh particles using tailored anisotropic and hyperbolic metasurfaces illuminated with a linearly polarized Gaussian beam. This platform permits to engineer optical traps at the beam axis with a response governed by nonconservative and giant recoil forces coming from the directional excitation of ultra-confined surface plasmons during the light scattering process. Compared to optical traps set over bulk metals, the proposed traps are broadband in the sense that can be set with beams oscillating at any frequency within the wide range in which the metasurfa…
Broadband bright biphotons from periodically poled triple-resonance metasurface
Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory（松山湖材料实验室）；ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Research School of Physics, Australian National University（澳大利亚国立大学变革性超光学系统卓越中心（TMOS）电子材料工程系物理研究学院）；School of Physics, Nanjing University（南京大学物理学院）；Institute of Applied Physics, Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena（耶拿弗里德里希·席勒大学应用物理研究所阿贝光子学中心）；Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所）
A novel method of generation and synthesis of azimuthally E-polarized vortex beams is presented. Along the axis of propagation such beams have a strong longitudinally polarized magnetic field where ideally there is no electric field. We show how these beams can be constructed through the interference of Laguerre-Gaussian beams carrying orbital angular momentum. As an example, we present a metasurface made of double-split ring slot pairs and report a good agreement between simulated and analytical results. Both a high magnetic-to-electric-field contrast ratio and a magnetic field enhancement ar…
Field-driven nonlinear metasurface: self-adaptive transition between high-selectivity transmission and broadband shielding
College of Electronic Science and Technology, National University of Defense Technology（国防科技大学电子科学学院）；Air and Missile Defense College, Air Force Engineering University（空军工程大学空天防御学院）
Metasurfaces have the potential to miniaturize and improve the performance of any optical element, with applications spanning telecommunications, computing and wearable optics. However, the ability to retain functionality over a continuous, broad range of wavelengths is essential for their widespread adoption. So far, efforts to achieve this have been limited to either a reflection configuration or operation at wavelengths other than the visible. Here, we show that by judicious choice of nanostructures, one can independently control both the phase and group delay, leading to broadband transmis…
We present a hybrid device platform for creating an electrically reconfigurable metasurface formed by the integration of plasmonic nanostructures with phase-change material germanium antimony telluride (GST). By changing the phase of GST from amorphous to crystalline through Joule heating, a large range of responses from the metasurface can be achieved. Furthermore, by using the intermediate phases of GST, the metasurface can interact with the incident light in both over-coupling and under-coupling regimes, leading to an inherently broadband response. Through a detailed investigation of the na…
