Dielectric metasurfaces for complete and independent control of the optical amplitude and phase

Abstract

Metasurfaces are optically thin metamaterials that promise complete control of the wavefront of light but are primarily used to control only the phase of light. Here, we present an approach, simple in concept and in practice, that uses meta-atoms with a varying degree of form birefringence and rotation angles to create high-efficiency dielectric metasurfaces that control both the optical amplitude and phase at one or two frequencies. This opens up applications in computer-generated holography, allowing faithful reproduction of both the phase and amplitude of a target holographic scene without the iterative algorithms required in phase-only holography. We demonstrate all-dielectric metasurface holograms with independent and complete control of the amplitude and phase at up to two optical frequencies simultaneously to generate two- and three-dimensional holographic objects. We show that phase-amplitude metasurfaces enable a few features not attainable in phase-only holography; these include creating artifact-free two-dimensional holographic images, encoding phase and amplitude profiles separately at the object plane, encoding intensity profiles at the metasurface and object planes separately, and controlling the surface textures of three-dimensional holographic objects.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Oct 09, 2019
Source ID
10.1038/s41377-019-0201-7

Entities

People

  • Aaron Stein
  • Adam C Overvig
  • Changxi Zheng
  • Ming Lu
  • Nanfang Yu
  • Sajan Shrestha
  • Stephanie C. Malek

Organizations

  • Division of Electrical, Communications & Cyber Systems
  • United States Department of Defense

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Image Processing and Computer Vision.
  • Nanofabrication and Microfabrication.
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics