Versatile full-colour nanopainting enabled by a pixelated plasmonic metasurface.

The growing interest to develop modern digital displays and colour printing has driven the advancement of colouration technologies with remarkable speed. In particular, metasurface-based structural colouration shows a remarkable high colour saturation, wide gamut palette, chiaroscuro presentation and polarization tunability. However, previous approaches cannot simultaneously achieve all these features. Here, we design and experimentally demonstrate a surface-relief plasmonic metasurface consisting of shallow nanoapertures that enable the independent manipulation of colour hue, saturation and brightness by individually varying the geometric dimensions and orientation of the nanoapertures. We fabricate microscale artworks using a reusable template-stripping technique that features photorealistic and stereoscopic impressions. In addition, through the meticulous arrangement of differently oriented nanoapertures, kaleidoscopic information states can be decrypted by particular combinations of incident and reflected polarized light.

Multifunctional metasurfaces enabled by simultaneous and independent control of phase and amplitude for orthogonal polarization states.

Monochromatic light can be characterized by its three fundamental properties: amplitude, phase, and polarization. In this work, we propose a versatile, transmission-mode all-dielectric metasurface platform that can independently manipulate the phase and amplitude for two orthogonal states of polarization in the visible frequency range. For proof-of-concept experimental demonstration, various single-layer metasurfaces composed of subwavelength-spaced titanium-dioxide nanopillars are designed, fabricated, and characterized to exhibit the ability of polarization-switchable multidimensional light-field manipulation, including polarization-switchable grayscale nanoprinting, nonuniform cylindrical lensing, and complex-amplitude holography. We envision the metasurface platform demonstrated here to open new possibilities toward creating compact multifunctional optical devices for applications in polarization optics, information encoding, optical data storage, and security.

Broadband generation of perfect Poincaré beams via dielectric spin-multiplexed metasurface.

The term Poincaré beam, which describes the space-variant polarization of a light beam carrying spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM), plays an important role in various optical applications. Since the radius of a Poincaré beam conventionally depends on the topological charge number, it is difficult to generate a stable and high-quality Poincaré beam by two optical vortices with different topological charge numbers, as the Poincaré beam formed in this way collapses upon propagation. Here, based on an all-dielectric metasurface platform, we experimentally demonstrate broadband generation of a generalized perfect Poincaré beam (PPB), whose radius is independent of the topological charge number. By utilizing a phase-only modulation approach, a single-layer spin-multiplexed metasurface is shown to achieve all the states of PPBs on the hybrid-order Poincaré Sphere for visible light. Furthermore, as a proof-of-concept demonstration, a metasurface encoding multidimensional SAM and OAM states in the parallel channels of elliptical and circular PPBs is implemented for optical information encryption. We envision that this work will provide a compact and efficient platform for generation of PPBs for visible light, and may promote their applications in optical communications, information encryption, optical data storage and quantum information sciences.

Photorealistic full-color nanopainting enabled by low-loss metasurface.

We realize a dielectric metasurface that enables full-color generation and ultrasmooth brightness variation. The reproduced artwork "Girl with a Pearl Earring" features photorealistic color representation and stereoscopic image impression, mimicking the texture of an oil-painting.

Plasmonic metasurfaces for subtractive color filtering: optimized nonlinear regression models.

We develop and explore a nonlinear regression modeling approach to designing subtractive color filters (SCFs) based on plasmonic metasurfaces. The approach opens up the possibility of rapidly choosing a desired optimized SCF design with high color saturation and brightness using an analytical expression. In this Letter, colors are produced by absorbing the light of specific wavelengths and reflecting the remaining spectrum with silver gap-plasmon nanoantennas deposited on a silver film. First, we design three different SCFs-yellow, magenta, and cyan. Then, by adjusting the design parameters of the nanoantennas, we optimize their high absorption resonance peaks (reflections dips), which are tunable over the visible spectrum. Finally, by using nonlinear regression analysis, we fit our results to a cubic regression model. Accordingly, a SCF for a color of choice can be designed in a straightforward way. This is a promising technique that provides a methodology to design preoptimized filters for practical applications such as color printing, high-resolution chromatic displays, and multi-spectral imaging.

Nanofocusing beyond the near-field diffraction limit via plasmonic Fano resonance.

The past decade has witnessed a great deal of optical systems designed for exceeding the Abbe's diffraction limit. Unfortunately, a deep subwavelength spot is obtained at the price of extremely short focal length, which is indeed a near-field diffraction limit that could rarely go beyond in the nanofocusing device. One method to mitigate such a problem is to set up a rapid oscillatory electromagnetic field that converges at the prescribed focus. However, abrupt modulation of phase and amplitude within a small fraction of a wavelength seems to be the main obstacle in the visible regime, aggravated by loss and plasmonic features that come into function. In this paper, we propose a periodically repeated ring-disk complementary structure to break the near-field diffraction limit via plasmonic Fano resonance, originating from the interference between the complex hybrid plasmon resonance and the continuum of propagating waves through the silver film. This plasmonic Fano resonance introduces a π phase jump in the adjacent channels and amplitude modulation to achieve radiationless electromagnetic interference. As a result, deep subwavelength spots as small as 0.0045λ(2) at 36 nm above the silver film have been numerically demonstrated. This plate holds promise for nanolithography, subdiffraction imaging and microscopy.

Sharp Fano resonance induced by a single layer of nanorods with perturbed periodicity.

In this paper, we report the formation of extremely sharp (Quality factor Q~ + ∞) FR in a single layer of dielectric nanorods with perturbed periodicity. The interference between the broadband Fabry-Perot (F-P) resonance and defect induced dark mode results in refractive index sensitivity (S) of 1312.75 nm/RIU and figure of merit (FOM) of 500, offering an excellent platform for biological sensing and detection.

Highly efficient wavefront manipulation in terahertz based on plasmonic gradient metasurfaces.

Polarization conversion efficiency is vitally important to highly efficient wavefront manipulation based on phase discontinuities. However, previous single-layer phase gradient metasurfaces have suffered from low polarization conversion efficiency (at most 25%). Here we present a three-layer structure to enhance polarization conversion efficiency. The average efficiency is 76% for circularly polarized incident light converted to its opposite handedness. By arraying metallic antennas with varied optical axes for circularly polarized incident light, the efficiency of anomalous refraction is apparently increased, and the focused intensity of flat lenses can be significantly enhanced in the terahertz regime. It is expected that this scheme has potential applications in detection, focusing, and imaging.

Conversion of broadband energy to narrowband emission through double-sided metamaterials.

In this paper, an energy harvesting/re-radiating device is proposed to realize high efficiency energy conversion in the solar thermo-photovoltaic system. Such device consists of double-sided metamaterials which are assembled by a broadband absorber working in the major solar spectrum, and a back-by-back narrowband emitter working in the infrared band. It is theoretically proved that most of solar light (from 0.28 µm to 4 µm) can be collected, and then, converted to a sharp emission at the maximal response energy level (~0.4 eV) of photovoltaic cells in thermal equilibrium state. The impact of high temperature (as large as 966 K) and the parasitic radiation on the performance is discussed and compensated by geometric optimization.