Integrated metasurfaces for re-envisioning a near-future disruptive optical platform

Abstract

Metasurfaces have been continuously garnering attention in both scientific and industrial fields, owing to their unprecedented wavefront manipulation capabilities using arranged subwavelength artificial structures. To date, research has mainly focused on the full control of electromagnetic characteristics, including polarization, phase, amplitude, and even frequencies. Consequently, versatile possibilities of electromagnetic wave control have been achieved, yielding practical optical components such as metalenses, beam-steerers, metaholograms, and sensors. Current research is now focused on integrating the aforementioned metasurfaces with other standard optical components (e.g., light-emitting diodes, charged-coupled devices, micro-electro-mechanical systems, liquid crystals, heaters, refractive optical elements, planar waveguides, optical fibers, etc.) for commercialization with miniaturization trends of optical devices. Herein, this review describes and classifies metasurface-integrated optical components, and subsequently discusses their promising applications with metasurface-integrated optical platforms including those of augmented/virtual reality, light detection and ranging, and sensors. In conclusion, this review presents several challenges and prospects that are prevalent in the field in order to accelerate the commercialization of metasurfaces-integrated optical platforms.

On-Chip Meticulous Grayscale High-Resolution Meta-Display

“…As a key research area in photonic science and technology, optical display and imaging encompass an extensive range of fields such as human eyes, digital cameras, optical communications, microscopes, and astronomical telescopes. In the recent decade, the invention of metasurfaces has exhibited the unprecedented capability of free-space light-field manipulation, − leading to various meta-display functionalities and applications. − More recently, the incorporation of metasurfaces onto optical waveguides has emerged as a compact platform for the manipulation of guided waves, garnering substantial attention and unveiling a progressive avenue of research . Through point-by-point modulating the guided waves along the on-chip scheme, various functionalities and application scenarios based on on-chip integrated metasurfaces have been enabled, including on-chip beam-steering, on-chip metalens, − vortex beam generator, , multiplexed meta-holography, − virtual/augmented reality, − screen display, etc.…”

Wide-angle camouflage detectors by manipulating emissivity using a non-reciprocal metasurface array

“…For practical purposes, radiation camouflage is more promising because the radiative properties can be modulated based on the surface characteristics, whether they are flattened, curved, smooth, rough or flexible. [19][20][21][22] It is possible to modulate the spectral, spatial, and polarization characteristics of thermal radiation, [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35] using nanostructures such as photonic crystals, gratings, multi-layered structures, meta-materials, and metasurfaces. For all proposed nanophotonic camouflage designs, emissivity is required to be near zero in the atmospheric window (8 mm to 14 mm), which is transparent to radiation and prone to detection.…”

Plasmonic Nano‐Rotamers with Programmable Polarization‐Resolved Coloration

“…[1,2] The ability to design plasmonic molecules at the nanoscale holds DOI: 10.1002/adom.202301730 immense potential for polarizationsensitive optical metamaterials that are currently beyond reach. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Plasmonic isomers, such as dimers [1] and trimers, [10] arise distinct coupled resonance when illuminated with linearly polarized light along their long axis, offering a wide range of applications in optical devices including, filters, [11,12] sensors, [13,14] and encryption. [15,16] Recent advances in nanofabrication techniques have further facilitated the realization of 3D structural nano-architecture, enabling the exploration of enantiomers, i.e., stereoisomers that are not superimposable with their mirror image.…”