Direction-Controlled Bifunctional Metasurface Polarizers
Abstract
Metasurfaces composed of in-plane subwavelength nanostructures have unprecedented capability in manipulating the amplitude, phase, and polarization states of light. Here, a unique type of direction-controlled bifunctional metasurface polarizer is proposed and experimentally demonstrated based on plasmonic stepped slit-groove dimers. In the forward direction, a chiral linear polarizer is enabled which only allows the transmission of a certain incident handedness and converts it into the specified linear polarization. In the backward direction, the metasurface functions as an anisotropic circular polarizer to selectively convert a certain linear polarization component into the desired circularly polarized transmission. The observed direction-controlled polarization selection and conversion are explained by the spin-dependent mode coupling process inside the bilayer structure. Anisotropic chiral imaging based on the proposed metasurface polarizer is further demonstrated. The results provide new degrees of freedom to realize future multifunctional photonic integrated devices for structured light conversion, vector beam generation, optical imaging and sensing, and optical communication.
Recommended Citation
Y. Chen et al., "Direction-Controlled Bifunctional Metasurface Polarizers," Laser and Photonics Reviews, vol. 12, no. 12, Wiley-VCH, Dec 2018.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1002/lpor.201800198
Department(s)
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Research Center/Lab(s)
Intelligent Systems Center
Keywords and Phrases
Anisotropy; Circular polarization; Degrees of freedom (mechanics); Dichroism; Optical instruments; Plasmonics; 3D fabrication; Asymmetric transmissions; Circularly polarized; Controlled polarization; Metasurfaces; Photonic integrated devices; Polarization conversion; Subwavelength nanostructures; Optical communication; Chiral metasurfaces; Circular dichroism
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
1863-8880; 1863-8899
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2018 Wiley-VCH, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Dec 2018
Comments
The authors acknowledge support from the Office of Naval Research under Grant No. N00014-16-1-2408, and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. ECCS-1653032 and DMR-1552871. The authors thank the facility support from the Materials Research Center at Missouri S&T.