Optical metasurfaces empower us to manipulate the electromagnetic space and control light propagation at the nanoscale, offering a powerful tool to achieve modulation of light for information processing and storage. In this work, we propose a phase-change metasurface to realize dynamic multiplexing and encryption of near-field information. Based on the orientation degeneracy and polarization control governed by Malus's law, we elaborately design the orientation distribution of Sb$_2$S$_3$ meta-atoms with the same dimension to simultaneously satisfy the amplitude modulation requirements of different channels. Using the corresponding polarization control as decoding keys, three different nanoprinting images can be displayed, and these multiplexed images can be switched on and off by leveraging the reversible tunability of the Sb$_2$S$_3$ meta-atoms between the amorphous and crystalline states. With the unparalleled advantages of ultra-compactness, simple design strategy, high information density and security, the proposed metasurfaces afford promising prospects for high-end applications in ultracompact and intelligent dynamic display, high-dense optical data storage, optical information encryption, etc.
Four-channel Imaging Based on Reconfigurable Metasurfaces: Hyperchaotic Encryption under Physical Protection
School of Information Engineering, Nanchang University（南昌大学信息工程学院）；Institute for Advanced Study, Nanchang University（南昌大学高等研究院）；Jiluan Academy, Nanchang University（南昌大学极链学院）
Metasurfaces enable manipulation of light propagation at an unprecedented level, benefitting from a number of merits unavailable to conventional optical elements, such as ultracompactness, precise phase and polarization control at deep subwavelength scale, and multifunctionalities. Recent progress in this field has witnessed a plethora of functional metasurfaces, ranging from lenses and vortex beam generation to holography. However, research endeavors have been mainly devoted to static devices, exploiting only a glimpse of opportunities that metasurfaces can offer. We demonstrate a dynamic met…
Establishing and approaching the fundamental limit of orbital angular momentum (OAM) multiplexing are necessary and increasingly urgent for current multiple-input multiple-output research. In this work, we elaborate the fundamental limit in terms of independent scattering channels (or degrees of freedom of scattered fields) through angular-spectral analysis, in conjunction with a rigorous Green function method. The scattering channel limit is universal for arbitrary spatial mode multiplexing, which is launched by a planar electromagnetic device, such as antenna, metasurface, etc, with a predef…
Optical metasurfaces enable to engineer the electromagnetic space and control light propagation at an unprecedented level, offering a powerful tool to achieve modulation of light over multiple physical dimensions. Here, we demonstrate a Sb$_{2}$S$_{3}$ phase-change metasurface platform that allows active manipulation of both amplitude and phase. In particular, we implement dynamic nanoprinting and holographic image display through tuning crystallization levels of this phase-change material. The Sb$_{2}$S$_{3}$ nanobricks tailored to function the amplitude, geometric and propagation phase modul…
Designing reconfigurable metasurfaces that can dynamically control scattered electromagnetic waves and work in the near-infrared (NIR) and optical regimes remains a challenging task, which is hindered by the static material property and fixed structures. Phase change materials (PCMs) can provide high contrast optical refractive indexes at high frequencies between amorphous and crystal states, therefore are promising as feasible materials for reconfigurable metasurfaces. Here, we propose a hybrid metasurface that can arbitrarily modulate the complex amplitude of incident light with uniform ampl…
Expanding the use of physical degrees of freedom to employ spatial multiplexing of data in optical communication is considered the most disruptive and effective solution to meet the capacity demand of the growing information traffic. Development of space-division-multiplexing methods stimulated research on spatial modulation, detection and processing of data, attracting interest from various fields of science. A passive all-dielectric metasurface with near-unity transmission is used to engineer spatial mode profiles, potentially of arbitrary complexity. The broadband response of the metasurfac…
Manipulating the polarization of light is highly desired for versatile applications ranging from super resolution, optical trapping, to particle acceleration. The enormous freedom in metasurface design motivates the implementation of polarization control in ultrathin and compact optical systems. However, the majority of proposed strategies based on metasurfaces have been demonstrated only a spatially homogeneous polarization generation, while less attention has been devoted to spatially variant inhomogeneous vector beams. Here, we demonstrate a novel method for generating arbitrary radial and …
Revealing the long-range coupling for multi-dimensional metasurface multiplexer
ZJU-UIUC Institute, Interdisciplinary Center for Quantum Information, State Key Laboratory of Extreme Photonics and Instrumentation, Zhejiang University（浙江大学紫金港国际校区、量子信息交叉中心、极端光子学与仪器国家重点实验室）；ZJU-Hangzhou Global Science and Technology Innovation Center, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Intelligent Electromagnetic Control and Advanced Electronic Integration, Zhejiang University（浙江大学杭州全球科创中心、浙江省智能电磁控制与先进电子集成重点实验室）
Rapid progress in nonlinear plasmonic metasurfaces enabled many novel optical characteristics for metasurfaces, with potential applications in frequency metrology, timing characterization and quantum information. However, the spectrum of nonlinear optical response was typically based upon the linear optical resonance. In this work, a wavelength-multiplexed nonlinear plasmon-MoS2 hybrid metasurface with suppression phenomenon was proposed, where multiple nonlinear signals could to be simultaneously processed and optionally tuned. A clear physical picture to depict the nonlinear plasmonic bound …
Information encryption and security is a prerequisite for information technology which can be realized by optical metasurface owing to its arbitrary manipulation over the wavelength, polarization, phase and amplitude of light. So far information encoding can be implemented by the metasurface in one dimensional (1D) mode (either wavelength or polarization) only with several combinations of independent channels. Here we successfully apply dielectric metasurfaces in a 2D mode (both wavelength and polarization) with far more combinations of independent channels to encrypt information, which theref…
Since its invention, holography has emerged as a powerful tool to fully reconstruct the wavefronts of light including all the fundamental properties (amplitude, phase, polarization, wave vector, and frequency). For exploring the full capability for information storage/display and enhancing the encryption security of metasurface holograms, smart multiplexing techniques together with suitable metasurface designs are highly demanded. Here, we integrate multiple polarization manipulation channels for various spatial phase profiles into a single birefringent vectorial hologram by completely avoidin…
Metasurfaces provide the disruptive technology enabling miniaturization of complex cascades of optical elements on a plane. We leverage the benefits of such a surface to develop a planar integrated photonic beam collimator for on-chip optofluidic sensing applications. While most of the current work focuses on miniaturizing the optical "detection" hardware, little attention is given to develop on-chip hardware for optical "excitation". In this manuscript, we propose a flat metasurface for beam collimation in optofluidic applications. We implement an inverse design approach to optimize the metas…
While nanoscale color generations have been studied for years, the high performance transmission structural color, simultaneously equipped with large gamut, high resolution, and optical multiplexing abilities, still remains as a hanging issue. Here, a silicon metasurface embedded Fabry-Pérot cavity is demonstrated to address this problem. By changing the planar geometries of metasurface units, the cavities provide transmission colors with 194% sRGB gamut coverage and 141111 DPI resolution, along with more than 300% enhanced angular tolerance. Such high density allows two-dimensional color mixi…
On-chip mode-division multiplexing (MDM) has been emerging as a promising technology to further enhance the link capacity and bandwidth of data communications with multiple mode channels. Both mode converters and mode exchangers are indispensable fundamental components for flexible mode operations. While several configurations have been developed previously, it is still very challenging to efficiently manipulate arbitrary high-order modes in a versatile way to reduce the R&D and prototyping costs. Here we initiate a breakthrough with a simple yet universal generic mode operator building block …
Plasmonic colour printing based on engineered metasurfaces has revolutionized colour display science due to its unprecedented subwavelength resolution and high-density optical data storage. However, advanced plasmonic displays with novel functionalities including dynamic multicolour printing, animations, and highly secure encryption have remained in their infancy. Here we demonstrate a dynamic plasmonic colour display technique that enables all the aforementioned functionalities using catalytic magnesium metasurfaces. Controlled hydrogenation and dehydrogenation of the constituent magnesium na…
Hologram is an ideal method for naked eye three-dimensional (3D) display, and computer-generated holography (CGH) makes it possible to reconstruct virtual objects. However, the large pixel size of common CGH devices results in shortages in the applications of hologram, such as narrow field of view, twin images, multi-diffraction orders, et al. Meanwhile, metasurfaces consisted of subwavelength structures show great potential in controlling of light which is suitable for hologram design. There are many inspired works to achieve dynamic meta-hologram as we summary in this paper. And it can be co…
Janus monolayers have long been captivated as a popular notion for breaking in-plane and out-of-plane structural symmetry. Originated from chemistry and materials science, the concept of Janus functions have been recently extended to ultrathin metasurfaces by arranging meta-atoms asymmetrically with respect to the propagation or polarization direction of the incident light. However, such metasurfaces are intrinsically static and the information they carry can be straightforwardly decrypted by scanning the incident light directions and polarization states once the devices are fabricated. In thi…
Plasmonic color generation utilizing ultra-thin metasurfaces as well as metallic nanoparticles hold a great promise for a wide range of applications, including color displays, data storage, and information encryption due to its high spatial resolution and mechanical/chemical stability. Most of the recently demonstrated systems generate static colors; however, more advanced applications such as data storage require fast and flexible means to tune the plasmonic colors, while keeping them vibrant and stable. Here, a surface-relief aluminum metasurface that reflects polarization-tunable plasmonic …
The ability to control waves at the nanoscale has attracted considerable attention to ultrathin metasurface lenses (metalenses) in optical imaging and encryption systems. We propose an approach to active tuning metasurfaces by integrating an ultrathin layer of indium-tin-oxide (ITO) into a unit cell as an electro-optically tunable material. A proposed design features two orthogonal wings that can independently manipulate waves with corresponding orthogonal polarizations. The charge carrier concentration in the ITO accumulation layer is altered by modulating the applied bias voltage. This bias …
Laser-Scrawled Random Plasmonic Metasurface in Nanoseconds for Physical Unclonable Functions
Dalian University of Technology（大连理工大学）；Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大连化学物理研究所）；China Jiliang University（中国计量大学）
Phase, polarization, amplitude and frequency represent the basic dimensions of light, playing crucial roles for both fundamental light-mater interactions and all major optical applications. Metasurface emerges as a compact platform to manipulate these knobs, but previous metasurfaces have limited flexibility to simultaneous control them. Here, we introduce a multi-freedom metasurface that can simultaneously and independently modulate phase, polarization and amplitude in an analytical form, and further realize frequency multiplexing by a k-space engineering technique. The multi-freedom metasurf…
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…
Nonlinear wavefront control is a crucial requirement in realizing nonlinear optical applications with metasurfaces. Numerous aspects of nonlinear frequency conversion and wavefront control have been demonstrated for plasmonic metasurfaces. However, several disadvantages limit their applicability in nonlinear nanophotonics, including high dissipative loss and low optical damage threshold. In contrast, it has been shown that metasurfaces made of high-index dielectrics can provide strong nonlinear responses. Regardless of the recent progress in nonlinear optical processes using all-dielectric nan…
Structural colors generated due to light scattering from static all-dielectric metasurfaces have successfully enabled high-resolution, high-saturation and wide-gamut color printing applications. Despite recent advances, most demonstrations of these structure-dependent colors lack post-fabrication tunability that hinders their applicability for front-end dynamic display technologies. Phase-change materials (PCMs), with significant contrast of their optical properties between their amorphous and crystalline states, have demonstrated promising potentials in reconfigurable nanophotonics. Herein, w…
Holography has emerged as a vital approach to fully engineer the wavefronts of light since its invention dating back to the last century. However, the typically large pixel size, small field of view and limited space-bandwidth impose limitations in the on-demand high-performance applications, especially for three-dimensional displays and large-capacity data storage. Meanwhile, metasurfaces have shown great potential in controlling the propagation of light through the well-tailored scattering behavior of the constituent ultrathin planar elements with a high spatial resolution, making them suita…
The flatness, compactness and high-capacity data storage capability make metasurfaces well-suited for holographic information recording and generation. However, most of the metasurface holograms are static, not allowing a dynamic modification of the phase profile after fabrication. Here, we propose and demonstrate a dynamic metasurface hologram by utilizing hierarchical reaction kinetics of magnesium upon a hydrogenation/dehydrogenation process. The metasurface is composed of composite gold/magnesium V-shaped nanoantennas as building blocks, leading to a reconfigurable phase profile in a hydro…
A novel technique for polarization-multiplexing ghost imaging is proposed to simultaneously obtain multiple polarimetric information by a single detector. Here, polarization-division multiplexing speckles are employed for object illumination. The light reflected from the objects is detected by a single-pixel detector. An iterative reconstruction method is used to restore the fused image containing the different polarimetric information by summing the multiplexed speckles and detected intensities. Next, clear images of the different polarimetric information are recovered by demultiplexing the f…
Secret sharing is a well-established cryptographic primitive for storing highly sensitive information like encryption keys for encoded data. It describes the problem of splitting a secret into different shares, without revealing any information about the secret to its shareholders. Here, we demonstrate an all-optical solution for secret sharing based on metasurface holography. In our concept, metasurface holograms are used as spatially separable shares that carry an encrypted message in form of a holographic image. Two of these shares can be recombined by bringing them close together. Light pa…
Thin structured surfaces allow flexible control over propagation of electromagnetic waves. Focusing and polarization state analysis are among functions, required for effective manipulation of radiation. Here a polarization sensitive Fresnel zone plate lens is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for GHz spectral range. Two spatially separated focal spots for orthogonal polarizations are obtained by designing metasurface pattern, made of overlapping tightly packed cross and rod shaped antennas with a strong polarization selectivity. Optimized subwavelength pattern allows multiplexing two di…
Edge-enhanced diffractive neural networks based on spin-multiplexed nonlocal metasurfaces
School of Information Engineering, Nanchang University（南昌大学信息工程学院）；School of Physics and Materials Science, Nanchang University（南昌大学物理与材料学院）；Institute for Advanced Study, Nanchang University（南昌大学高等研究院）
High-quality flat optical elements require efficient light deflection to large angles and over a wide wavelength spectrum. Although phase gradient metasurfaces achieve this by continuously adding phase shifts in the range of 0 to 2π to the electric field with subwavelength-sized scatterers, their performance is limited by the spatial resolution of phase modulation at the interface. Here, we introduce a new class of metasurfaces based on a general formulation, where the phase shifts cover less than the full 0-2π range, offering significant advantages. More specifically, this approach allows the…
Multiplexed planar printings, made of single or few layer micro and nano optical platforms, are essential for high capacity display, information storage and encryption. Although having been developed rapidly, the demonstrated channels are still limited and also lack instantaneity. Here, holograms and printings, always regarded as two independent information coding domains with totally different principles, are combined together through our proposed angle multiplexing framework, leading to multiplexed printings with hundreds of channels. Based on such approach, we experimentally encode respecti…
Terahertz chiral sensing and polarization-multiplexing communication demand subwavelength devices that dynamically invert polarization helicity. Metasurfaces can enhance anisotropy and fine tunability at subwavelength scales for this purpose. Although metasurfaces enabling deep modulation between orthogonal polarizations have been designed, they suffer from low conversion efficiencies. In this study, it is shown that the efficiency of conversion from linear to circular polarization by conventional single-layer transmissive metasurfaces cannot exceed a fundamental limit. A dynamic reflective me…
Recent advances in holography, wireless sensing and light fidelity technologies have resulted in the need for antennas that can support highly efficient beam directivity for a broad angular range. Transmitarrays have been shown to be promising candidates for the determination of such structures. Here, we present a comprehensive methodology for the design of subwavelength all-dielectric flat metasurfaces with high transmission and deflection range. The metasurfaces are CMOS compatible and can be fabricated using conventional processing of silicon-on-insulator technology. The optimized structure…
Optical coordinate transformation (OCT) has attracted widespread attention in the field of orbital angular momentum (OAM) (de)multiplexing or manipulation, but the performance of OCT would suffer from its distortion. In this paper, we quantitatively analyze the distortion of OCT from the perspective of ray optics, and explain its rationality to work under non-normal incident light. For the special case of log-polar coordinate transformation (LPCT), we use a raytracing assisted optimization scheme to improve its distortion, which is related to a Zernike polynomial based phase compensation. Afte…
Nonlinear metasurface holography shows the great potential of metasurfaces to control the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light while simultaneously converting the frequency of the light. The possibility of tailoring the scattering properties of a coherent beam, as well as the scattering properties of nonlinear signals originating from the meta-atoms facilitates a huge degree of freedom in beam shaping application. Recently, several approaches showed that virtual objects or any kind of optical information can be generated at a wavelength different from the laser input beam. Here, we demo…
Replacing electrons with photons is a compelling route towards light-speed, highly parallel, and low-power artificial intelligence computing. Recently, all-optical diffractive neural deep neural networks have been demonstrated. However, the existing architectures often comprise bulky components and, most critically, they cannot mimic the human brain for multitasking. Here, we demonstrate a multi-skilled diffractive neural network based on a metasurface device, which can perform on-chip multi-channel sensing and multitasking at the speed of light in the visible. The metasurface is integrated wi…
The Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase in metasurfaces obeys the symmetry restriction, according to which the PB phases of two orthogonal circularly polarized waves are the same but with opposite signs. Here, we reveal a general mechanism to break the axisymmetry of meta-atoms in order to break the PB-phase symmetry restriction. As a proof of concept, we designed a novel meta-atom with a QR-code structure and successfully demonstrated circular-polarization multiplexing metasurface holography. This study provides a fundamentally new understanding of the PB phase and opens a path for arbitrary wavefr…
