Metasurfaces with unparalleled controllability of light have shown great potential to revolutionize conventional optics. However, they mainly work with free-space light input, which makes it difficult for full on-chip integration. On the other hand, integrated photonics enables densely packed devices but has limited free-space light controllability. Here, we show that judiciously designed guided-wave-driven metasurfaces can mold guided waves into arbitrary free-space modes to achieve complex free-space functions, such as beam steering and focusing, with ultrasmall footprints and potentially no diffraction loss. Based on the same concept together with broken inversion symmetry induced by metasurfaces, we also realized direct orbital angular momentum (OAM) lasing from a micro-ring resonator. Our study works towards complete control of light across integrated photonics and free-space platforms, and paves new exciting ways for creating multifunctional photonic integrated devices with agile access to free space which could enable a plethora of applications in communications, remote sensing, displays, and etc.
Directional emission of photons with designed polarizations and orbital angular momenta is crucial for exploiting full potential of quantum emitters (QEs) within quantum information technologies. Capitalizing on the concept of hybrid plasmon-QE coupled metasurfaces, we develop a holography-based design approach allowing one to construct surface nanostructures for outcoupling QE-excited circularly diverging surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) into well-collimated beams of photons with desirable polarization characteristics propagating along given directions. Using the well-established simulation …
Photonic metasurfaces are ultrathin electromagnetic wave-molding metamaterials providing the missing link for the integration of nanophotonic chips with nanoelectronic circuits. An extra twist in this field originates from spin-optical metasurfaces providing the photon spin (polarization helicity) as an additional degree of freedom in light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Here we report on a generic concept to control the photonic transport by disordered (random) metasurfaces with a custom-tailored geometric phase. This approach combines the peculiarity of random patterns to support extr…
Optical vortices are the electromagnetic analogue of fluid vortices studied in hydrodynamics. In both cases the traveling wavefront, either made of light or fluid, is twisted like a corkscrew around its propagation axis - an analogy that inspired also the first proposition of the concept of optical vortex. Even though vortices are one of the most fundamental topological excitations in nature, they are rarely found in their electromagnetic form in natural systems, for the exception of energetic sources in astronomy, such as pulsars, quasars and black holes. Mostly optical vortices are artificia…
The diffractive nature of light has limited optics and photonics to operate at scales much larger than the wavelength of light. The major challenge in scaling-down integrated photonics is how to mold the light flow below diffraction-limit in all three dimensions. A high index solid immersion lens can improve the spatial resolution by increasing the medium refractive index, but only to few times higher than in air. Photonic crystals can guide light in three dimensions, however, the guided beam width is around a wavelength. Surface plasmons has a potential to reach the sub-wavelength scales; nev…
Molding the flow of light at the nanoscale has been a grand challenge of nanophotonics for decades. It is now widely recognized that metasurfaces represent a chip-scale nanophotonics array technology capable of comprehensively controlling the wavefront of light via appropriately configuring subwavelength antenna elements. Here, we demonstrate a reconfigurable metasurface that is universal, i.e., notionally capable of providing diverse optical functions in the telecommunication wavelength regime, using a compact, lightweight, electronically-controlled array with no moving parts. By electro-opti…
We present a general theory for designing realistic omega-type bianisotropic metasurfaces (O-BMSs), unlocking their full potential for molding electromagnetic fields. These metasurfaces, characterized by electric surface impedance, magnetic surface admittance, and magnetoelectric coupling coefficient, were previously considered for wavefront manipulation. However, previous reports mainly considered plane-wave excitations, and implementations included cumbersome metallic features. In this work, we prove that any field transformation which locally conserves real power can be implemented via pass…
In this letter, a new approach to perform edge detection is presented using an all-dielectric CMOS-compatible metasurface. The design is based on guided-mode resonance which provides a high quality factor resonance to make the edge detection experimentally realizable. The proposed structure that is easy to fabricate, can be exploited for detection of edges in two dimensions due to its symmetry. Also, the trade-off between gain and resolution of edge detection is discussed which can be adjusted by appropriate design parameters. The proposed edge detector has also the potential to be used in ult…
Metasurfaces have achieved fruitful results in tailoring complexing light fields in free space. However, a systematic investigation on applying the concept of meta-optics to completely control waveguide modes is still elusive. Here we present a comprehensive catalog capable of selectively and exclusively excite almost arbitrary high-order waveguide modes of interest, leveraging silicon metasurface-patterned silicon nitride waveguides. By simultaneously engineering the phase-matched gradient of the metasurface and the vectorial spatial modal overlap between the nanoantenna near-field and target…
To date, second-harmonic generation (SHG) at nanoscale has been concentrated on employing high-refractive-index nanostructures, owing to the strong field confinement at deep subwavelength scales based on optically resonant effects. However, low-index nanostructures generally exhibit weaker resonant effects and lower field confinement. To address this issue, by harnessing the large nonlinearity of LiNbO$\mathrm{_3}$, we propose a novel approach to employ guided resonances and bound states in the continuum (BICs) with a LiNbO$\mathrm{_3}$ metasurface consisting of a LiNbO$\mathrm{_3}$ disk array…
Moving metasurfaces support guided waves exhibiting unusual optical properties, including strong anisotropy, nonreciprocity, and hyperbolic dispersion. However, for these phenomena to be noticeable, high speeds are typically required, challenging their practical implementation. Here, we show a viable route towards the realization of one-way hyperbolic propagation in metasurfaces placed synthetically in motion through traveling-wave space-time modulation. In addition to non-reciprocal hyperbolic propagation, the proposed time-modulation scheme induces additional exotic opportunities for nanopho…
We study the negative couplings amid local resonances of photonic metasurfaces. In our analysis, we discover pseudo-spin-orbit coupled bulk modes leading to lines of circularly polarized radiation eigenstates in two-dimensional momentum space which were considered to exist only in three-dimensions. Our theoretical model is exemplified via a guided resonance dielectric metasurface that possesses Type-II Non-Hermitian diabolical points, from where the circular polarization lines emanate. The designed metasurface carries circular polarized radiation eigenstates in both the 0th and the 1st diffrac…
Zeroth-order-free holographic reconstruction with a nanoimprinted nonlocal metasurface
Science & Technology Research Laboratories, Japan Broadcasting Corporation NHK（日本广播协会NHK科学技术研究所）；Department of Physics and Electronics, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Metropolitan University（大阪公立大学工学研究科物理电子学专业）
Metamaterials and metasurfaces are at the pinnacle of wave propagation engineering, yet their design has thus far been mainly focused on deep-subwavelength periodicities, practically forming an effective medium. Such an approach overlooks important structural degrees-of-freedom, e.g. the interplay between the corrugation periodicity and depth and how it affects the beam transport. Here, we present Slack Metasurfaces - weakly modulated metal-dielectric interfaces unlocking all structural degrees-of-freedom that affect the wave propagation. We experimentally demonstrate control over the anisotro…
Enhanced third-harmonic generation and degenerate four-wave mixing in an all-dielectric metasurfaces via Brillouin zone folding-induced bound states in the continuum
We present a semi-analytical point-dipole method that uses Ewald lattice summation to find the dispersion relation of guided plasmonic and bianisotropic modes in metasurfaces composed of 2D periodic lattices of arbitrarily strongly scattering magneto-electric dipole scatterers. This method takes into account all retarded electrodynamic interactions as well as radiation damping selfconsistently. As illustration we analyze the dispersion of plasmon nanorod lattices, and of 2D split ring resonator lattices. Plasmon nanorod lattices support transverse and longitudinal in-plane electric modes. Scat…
For passive, lossless impenetrable metasurfaces, a design technique for arbitrary beam control of receiving, guiding, and launching is presented. Arbitrary control is enabled by a custom surface wave in an orthogonal polarization such that its addition to the incident (input) and the desired scattered (output) fields is supported by a reactive surface impedance everywhere on the reflecting surface. Such a custom surface wave (SW) takes the form of an evanescent wave propagating along the surface with a spatially varying envelope. A growing SW appears when an illuminating beam is received. The …
Flat optics has demonstrated great advances in miniaturizing conventional, bulky optical elements due to the recent developments in metasurface design. Specific applications of such designs include spatial differentiation and the compression of free space. However, metasurfaces designed for such applications are often polarization-dependent and are designed for a single functionality. In this work, we introduce a polarization-independent metasurface structure by designing guided resonances with degenerate band curvatures in a photonic crystal slab. Our device can perform both free-space compre…
Resonant periodic nanostructures provide perfect reflection across small or large spectral bandwidths depending on the choice of materials and design parameters. This effect has been known for decades, observed theoretically and experimentally via one-dimensional and two-dimensional structures commonly known as resonant gratings, metamaterials, and metasurfaces. The physical cause of this extraordinary phenomenon is guided-mode resonance mediated by lateral Bloch modes excited by evanescent diffraction orders in the subwavelength regime. In recent years, hundreds of papers have declared Fabry-…
Ultrawide-angle diffraction-limited 2D beam steering via hybrid integrated metasurface-photonic circuit
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Pi Inc.（2Pi公司）；Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART)（新加坡-麻省理工学院研究与技术联盟）；University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；NASA Langley Research Center（美国国家航空航天局兰利研究中心）；Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology（韩国科学技术院）
Dynamically reconfigurable metasurfaces promise compact and lightweight spatial light modulation for many applications, including LiDAR, AR/VR, and LiFi systems. Here, we design and computationally investigate high quality factor silicon-on-lithium niobate metasurfaces with electrically-driven, independent control of its constituent nanobars for full phase tunability with high tuning efficiency. Free-space light couples to guided modes within each nanobar via periodic perturbations, generating quality factors exceeding 30,000, while maintaining bar spacing <$λ$/1.5. We achieve nearly 2$π$ phas…
Periodic photonic lattices constitute a fundamental pillar of physics supporting a plethora of scientific concepts and applications. The advent of metamaterials and metastructures is grounded in deep understanding of their properties. Based on the original 1956 formulation by Rytov, it is well known that a photonic lattice with deep subwavelength periodicity can be approximated with a homogeneous space having an effective refractive index. Whereas the attendant effective-medium theory (EMT) commonly used in the literature is based on the zeroth root, the closed-form transcendental equations po…
Hyperbolic media have attracted much attention in the photonics community, thanks to their ability to confine light to arbitrarily small volumes and to their use for super-resolution applications. The 2D counterpart of these media can be achieved with hyperbolic metasurfaces, which support in-plane hyperbolic guided modes thanks to nanopatterns which, however, pose significant fabrication challenges and limit the achievable confinement. We show that thin flakes of the van der Waals material α-MoO3 can support naturally in-plane hyperbolic polariton guided modes at mid-infrared frequencies with…
Hybrid BaTiO3/TiO2 Metasurface for Efficient Gigahertz-Speed Free-Space Electro-Optic Modulation
Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University（哈佛大学约翰·A·保尔森工程与应用科学学院）；Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University（哈佛大学化学与化学生物学系）；La Luce Cristallina, Inc.（La Luce Cristallina 公司）；Institute of Experimental Physics, Graz University of Technology（格拉茨工业大学实验物理研究所）；Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology（卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院纳米技术研究所）；Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Irvine（加州大学欧文分校材料科学与工程系）
In recent years a significant progress has been made in the development of magnet-less nonreciprocity using space-time modulation, both in electromagnetics and acoustics. This approach has so far resulted in a plethora of non-reciprocal devices, such as isolators and circulators, over different parts of the spectrum, for guided waves. On the other hand, very little work has been performed on non-reciprocal devices for waves propagating in free space, which can also have many practical applications. For example, it was shown theoretically that non-reciprocal scattering by a metasurface can be o…
