Paper

Nonlocal phase-change metaoptics for reconfigurable nonvolatile image processing

Moskalenko, Andriy, Farmakidis, Nikolaos, Wang, Mengyun, Shields, Joe, Carlota Ruiz de Galarreta, Huang, Kairan, Kendall, Stuart, Bertolotti, Jacopo, Yang, Guoce, Wright, C David, Bhaskaran, Harish, Alù, Andrea, Lee, June Sang

2024

Overview

The next generation of smart imaging and vision systems will require compact and tunable optical computing hardware to perform high-speed and low-power image processing. These requirements are driving the development of computing metasurfaces to realize efficient front-end analog optical pre-processors, especially for edge-detection capability. Yet, there is still a lack of reconfigurable or programmable schemes, which may drastically enhance the impact of these devices at the system level. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a reconfigurable flat optical image processor using low-loss phase-change nonlocal metasurfaces. The metasurface is configured to realize different transfer functions in spatial frequency space, when transitioning the phase-change material between its amorphous and crystalline phases. This enables edge detection and bright-field imaging modes on the same device. The metasurface is compatible with a large numerical aperture of ~0.5, making it suitable for high resolution coherent optical imaging microscopy. The concept of phase-change reconfigurable nonlocal metasurfaces may enable emerging applications of artificial intelligence-assisted imaging and vision devices with switchable multitasking.

• Publisher: Cornell University Library, arXiv.org
• Subject: Amorphous materials / Artificial intelligence / Computation / Edge detection / Image enhancement / Image processing / Image processors / Image resolution / Metasurfaces / Microprocessors / Multitasking / Numerical aperture / Phase change materials / Reconfigurable hardware / Reconfiguration / Transfer functions / Vision systems