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For the intelligence of metamaterials, the -sensing mechanism and programmable reaction units are two important components for self-recognition and -determination. However, their realization still face great challenges. Here, we propose a smart sensing metasurface to achieve self-defined functions in the framework of digital coding metamaterials. A sensing unit that can simultaneously process the sensing channel and realize phase-programmable capability is designed by integrating radio frequency (RF) power detector and PIN diodes. Four sensing units distributed on the metasurface aperture can detect the microwave incidences in the - and -polarizations, while the other elements can modulate the reflected phase patterns under the control of a field programmable gate array (FPGA). To validate the performance, three schemes containing six coding patterns are presented and simulated, after which two of them are measured, showing good agreements with designs. We envision that this work may motivate studies on smart metamaterials with high-level recognition and manipulation.

Metasurfaces have attracted great attention due to their ability to manipulate the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light in a compact form. Tunable metasurfaces have been investigated recently through the integration with mechanically moving components and electrically tunable elements. Two interesting applications, in particular, are to vary the focal point of metalenses and to switch between holographic images. We present the recent progress on tunable metasurfaces focused on metalenses and metaholograms, including the basic working principles, advantages, and disadvantages of each working mechanism. We classify the tunable stimuli based on the light source and electrical bias, as well as others such as thermal and mechanical modulation. We conclude by summarizing the recent progress of metalenses and metaholograms, and providing our perspectives for the further development of tunable metasurfaces.

Chirality, the absence of mirror symmetry, is predominant in nature. The chiral nature of the electromagnetic field behaves differently with chiral matter for left circularly polarized and right circularly polarized light. The chiroptical behavior in the sensing of naturally occurring chiral objects is weak, and improving the chiroptical response enhances the chiral sensing platform. This review covers the fundamental concepts of chiral metasurfaces and various types of single- and multi-layered chiral metasurfaces. In addition, we discuss tunable and deep-learning-based chiral metasurfaces. Tunability is achieved by manipulating the meta-atom’s property in response to external stimuli for applications such as optical modulation, chiral photonics, advanced sensing, and adaptive optics. Deep-learning modeling techniques, such as CNNs and GANs, offer efficient learning of the complex relationships in data, enabling the optimization and accurate prediction of chiral metasurface properties. The challenges in the design and fabrication of chiral metasurface include achieving broadband performance and scalability and addressing material limitations. Chiral metasurface performance is evaluated by optical rotation, circular dichroism enhancement, and tunability, which are quantified through the spectroscopic measurement of circular dichroism and optical rotation. Chiral metasurface progress enables applications, including metaholography, metalenses, and chiral sensing. Chiral sensing improves the detection of pharmaceuticals and biomolecules, increasing the sensitivity and accuracy of analytical diagnostics.

Chiral metasurfaces exploit structural asymmetry to control circular polarized light, presenting new possibilities for the design of optical devices, specifically in the dynamic control of light and enhanced optical sensing fields. This study employed theoretical and computational methods to examine the chiroptical properties of a bilayer crescent chiral metasurface, demonstrating the effect of the angle of rotation on the chiroptical response. We particularly investigated the changes in transmittance, electric field distribution, and circular dichroism (CD) across various rotation angles. The crescent chiral metasurface demonstrated the maximum CD and showed significant control over the CD and electric field distribution across different rotation angles in the near-infrared region. The highest CD value was observed at a 23° rotation angle, where the chiroptical response reached its maximum. In addition, the left circular polarized light showed a stronger intensity of the electric field along the crescent metasurface edge relative to the right circular polarized light, underscoring the significant difference in the intensity and field localization. It was also shown that the configuration with a 2 by 2-unit cell, compared with a single-unit cell, exhibited significantly enhanced CD, thus underlining the importance of the unit cell arrangement in optimizing the chiroptical properties of metasurfaces for advanced photonic applications. These results prove that the 2 by 2 bilayer crescent chiral metasurface can be tailored to a fine degree for specific applications such as improved biosensing, enhanced optical communications, and precise polarization control by optimizing the configuration. The insight presented by this theoretical and computational study will contribute to the broad understanding of chiroptical phenomena as well as pave the way for potential applications in developing advanced optical devices with tuned chiroptical interactions.

One of the fastest-expanding study areas in optics over the past decade has been metasurfaces (MSs). These subwavelength meta-atom-based ultrathin arrays have been developed for a broad range of functions, including lenses, polarization control, holography, coloring, spectroscopy, sensors, and many more. They allow exact control of the many properties of electromagnetic waves. The performance of MSs has dramatically improved because of recent developments in nanofabrication methods, and this concept has developed to the point that it may be used in commercial applications. In this review, a vital topic of sensing has been considered and an up-to-date study has been carried out. Three different kinds of MS absorber sensor formations, all-dielectric, all-metallic, and hybrid configurations, are presented for biochemical sensing applications. We believe that this review paper will provide current knowledge on state-of-the-art sensing devices based on MSs.

Toroidal dipole (TD) with weak coupling to the electromagnetic fields offers tremendous potential for advanced design of photonic devices. However, the excitation of high quality ( ) factor TD resonances in these devices is challenging. Here, we investigate ultrahigh- factor TD resonances at terahertz frequencies arising from a distortion of symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum (BIC) in all-dielectric metasurface consisting of an array of high-index tetramer clusters. By elaborately arranging the cylinders forming an asymmetric cluster, two distinct TD resonances governed by BIC are excited and identified. One is distinguished as intracluster TD mode that occurs in the interior of tetramer cluster, and the other one is intercluster TD mode that arises from the two neighboring clusters. Such TD resonances can be turned into ultrahigh- leaky resonances by controlling the asymmetry of cluster. The low-loss TD resonances with extremely narrow linewidth are very sensitive to the change in the refractive index of the surrounding media, achieving ultrahigh sensitivity level of 489 GHz/RIU. These findings will open up an avenue to develop ultrasensitive photonic sensor in the terahertz regime.

A polarization independent holographic beam splitter that generates equal-intensity beams based on geometric metasurface is demonstrated. Although conventional geometric metasurfaces have the advantages of working over a broad frequency range and having intuitive design principles, geometric metasurfaces have the limitation that they only work for circular polarization. In this work, Fourier holography is used to overcome this limitation. A perfect overlap resulting from the origin-symmetry of the encoded image enables polarization independent operation of geometric metasurfaces. The designed metasurface beam splitter is experimentally demonstrated by using hydrogenated amorphous silicon, and the device performs consistent beam splitting regardless of incident polarizations as well as wavelengths. Our device can be applied to generate equal-intensity beams for entangled photon light sources in quantum optics, and the design approach provides a way to develop ultra-thin broadband polarization independent components for modern optics.

The remarkable capability in regulating light polarization or amplitude at the nanoscale makes metasurface a leading candidate in high-resolution image display and optical encryption. Diverse binary or grayscale meta-images were previously shown concealed in a single metasurface, yet they are mostly stored at same encryption level and share an identical decryption key, running the risk of exposing all images once the key is disclosed. Here, we propose a twofold optical display and encryption scheme demonstrating that binary and grayscale meta-images can be concurrently embedded in a nonspatially multiplexed silicon metasurface, and their decryptions demand for drastically different keys. Unlike previous metasurfaces relying on isolated transmission or phase manipulations upon orthogonal linear polarization incidences, this is made possible by exploiting silicon meta-atoms featuring joint transmission amplitude and polarization control at two wavelengths. In detail, the selected two meta-atoms exhibit large polarization-independent transmission difference (∼85 %) at a wavelength of 800 nm, while functioning as the nano-quarter-wave plate at wavelength of 1200 nm. Through elaborate design in simulation, a binary image can be witnessed when the metasurface is merely illuminated by an unpolarized light of wavelength 800 nm or under white light illumination. However, a distinct binary or grayscale image will come into view by inspecting the metasurface with an analyzer and when the incident light is circularly polarized at the wavelength of 1200 nm. Two metasurface samples are fabricated and successfully verified the claims experimentally. The proposed approach is expected to bring new insights to the field of optical display and encryption.

Plasmonic metasurfaces, which can be considered as the two-dimensional analog of metal-based metamaterials, have attracted progressively increasing attention in recent years because of the ease of fabrication and unprecedented control over the reflected or transmitted light while featuring relatively low losses even at optical wavelengths. Among all the different design approaches, gap-surface plasmon metasurfaces – a specific branch of plasmonic metasurfaces – which consist of a subwavelength thin dielectric spacer sandwiched between an optically thick metal film and arrays of metal subwavelength elements arranged in a strictly or quasi-periodic fashion, have gained awareness from researchers working at practically any frequency regime as its realization only requires a single lithographic step, yet with the possibility to fully control the amplitude, phase, and polarization of the reflected light. In this paper, we review the fundamentals, recent developments, and opportunities of gap-surface plasmon metasurfaces. Starting with introducing the concept of gap-surface plasmon metasurfaces, we present three typical gap-surface plasmon resonators, introduce generalized Snell’s law, and explain the concept of Pancharatnam-Berry phase. We then overview the main applications of gap-surface plasmon metasurfaces, including beam-steerers, flat lenses, holograms, absorbers, color printing, polarization control, surface wave couplers, and dynamically reconfigurable metasurfaces. The review is ended with a short summary and outlook on possible future developments.

Optical metasurfaces allow the ability to precisely manipulate the wavefront of light, creating many interesting and exotic optical phenomena. However, they generally lack dynamic control over their optical properties and are limited to passive optical elements. In this work, we report the nontrivial infiltration of nanostructured metalenses with three respective nematic liquid crystals of different refractive index and birefringence. The optical properties of the metalens are evaluated after liquid-crystal infiltration to quantify its effect on the intended optical design. We observe a significant modification of the metalens focus after infiltration for each liquid crystal. These optical changes result from modification of local refractive index surrounding the metalens structure after infiltration. We report qualitative agreement of the optical experiments with finite-difference time-domain solver (FDTD) simulation results. By harnessing the tunability inherent in the orientation dependent refractive index of the infiltrated liquid crystal, the metalens system considered here has the potential to enable dynamic reconfigurability in metasurfaces.