Miniature tunable Airy beam optical meta-device

Tunable Airy beams with controllable propagation trajectories have sparked interest in various fields,such as optical manipulation and laser fabrication.Existing research approaches encounter challenges related to insufficient compactness and integration feasibility,or they require enhanced tunability to enable real-time dynamic manipulation of the propagation trajectory.In this work,we present a novel method that utilizes a dual metasurface system to surpass these limitations,significantly enhancing the practical potential of the Airy beam.Our approach involves encoding a cubic phase profile and two off-axis Fresnel lens phase profiles across the two metasurfaces.The validity of the proposed strategy has been confirmed through simulation and experimental results.The proposed meta-device addresses the existing limitations and lays the foundation for broadening the applicability of Airy beams across diverse domains,encompassing light-sheet microscopy,laser fabrication,optical tweezers,etc.

Broadband high-efficiency dielectric metalenses based on quasi-continuous nanostrips

Benefiting from the abrupt phase changes within subwavelength thicknesses,metasurfaces have been widely applied for lightweight and compact optical systems.Simultaneous broadband and high-efficiency characteristics are highly attractive for the practical implementation of metasurfaces.However,current metasurface devices mostly adopt discrete micro/nano structures,which rarely realize both merits simultaneously.In this paper,dielectric metasurfaces composed of quasi-continuous nanostrips are proposed to overcome this limitation.Via quasi-continuous nanostrips metasurface,a normal focusing metalens and a superoscillatory lens overcoming the diffraction limit are designed and experimentally demonstrated.The quasi-continuous metadevices can operate in a broadband wavelength ranging from 450 nm to 1000nm and keep a high power efficiency.The average efficiency of the fabricated metalens reaches 54.24%,showing a significant improvement compared to the previously reported metalenses with the same thickness.The proposed methodology can be easily extended to design other metadevices with the advantages of broadband and high-efficiency in practical optical systems.

Time-sequential color code division multiplexing holographic display with metasurface

Color metasurface holograms are powerful and versatile platforms for modulating the amplitude,phase,polarization,and other properties of light at multiple operating wavelengths.However,the current color metasurface holography can only realize static manipulation.In this study,we propose and demonstrate a multiplexing metasurface technique combined with multiwavelength code-division multiplexing(CDM)to realize dynamic manipulation.Multicolor code references are utilized to record information within a single metasurface and increase the information capacity and security for anticracks.A total of 48 monochrome images consisting of pure color characters and multilevel color video frames were reconstructed in dual polarization channels of the birefringent metasurface to exhibit high information density,and a video was displayed via sequential illumination of the corresponding code patterns to verify the ability of dynamic manipulation.Our approach demonstrates significant application potential in optical data storage,optical encryption,multiwavelengthversatile diffractive optical elements,and stimulated emission depletion microscopy.

Phase characterisation of metalenses

Metalenses have emerged as a new optical element or system in recent years,showing superior performance and abundant applications.However,the phase distribution of a metalens has not been measured directly up to now,hindering further quantitative evaluation of its performance.We have developed an interferometric imaging phase measurement system to measure the phase distribution of a metalens by taking only one photo of the interference pattern.Based on the measured phase distribution,we analyse the negative chromatic aberration effect of monochromatic metalenses and propose a feature size of metalenses.Different sensitivities of the phase response to wavelength between the Pancharatnam-Berry phase-based metalens and propagation phase-reliant metalens are directly observed in the experiment.Furthermore,through phase distribution analysis,it is found that the distance between the measured metalens and the brightest spot of focusing will deviate from the focal length when the metalens has a low nominal numerical aperture,even though the metalens is ideal without any fabrication error.We also use the measured phase distribution to quantitatively characterise the imaging performance of the metalens.Our phase measurement system will help not only designers optimise the designs of metalenses but also fabricants distinguish defects to improve the fabrication process,which will pave the way for metalenses in industrial applications.