Multiple Multicolored 3D Polarization Knots Arranged along Light Propagation

Yan Li, Muhammad Afnan Ansari, Hammad Ahmed, Ruoxing Wang, Guanchao Wang, Qunxing Yu, Chunmei Zhang, Shuqi Chen, Xianzhong Chen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Polarization and color play essential roles in understanding optical phenomena and practical applications. Customized three-dimensional (3D) light fields, characterized by specific polarization and color distributions, have garnered growing interest owing to their unique optical attributes and expanded capacity for information encoding. To align with the ongoing trend of compactness and integration, it is desirable to develop lightweight optical elements that can simultaneously control polarization and color in 3D space. Although engineering longitudinally variable 3D optical structures with predesigned color and polarization information can add more degrees of freedom and additional capacity for information encoding, it has not been reported. We propose a metasurface approach to generating multiple 3D polarization knots along the light propagation direction. Each knot features two colors and an engineered 3D polarization profile. Different multicolored 3D polarization knots are obtained by controlling the observation region along the light propagation. Our approach simultaneously combines polarization, color, and longitudinal control in 3D environment, offering extra degrees of freedom for engineering complex vector beams. The unique properties of the developed metadevices, together with the design flexibility and compactness of metasurface, pave the way for polarization systems with small volumes applicable to some areas such as complex structured beams and encryption.

Original languageEnglish
JournalACS Photonics
Early online date20 Sept 2024
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 20 Sept 2024

Keywords

  • color control
  • longitudinal control
  • metalens
  • optical metasurfaces
  • polarization knots

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Biotechnology
  • Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

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