Nonlocal active metasurfaces with ultimate wavefront shaping performance

Description

Optical metasurfaces have become increasingly prevalent as key components for manipulating light properties. Nevertheless, the majority of these devices remain passive and lack the capability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Here, we propose an innovative design approach using asymmetric Gires–Tournois resonators to achieve comprehensive phase modulation of light with near-unity efficiency.The active metasurface resonators filled with either silicon or hetero-structured materials. These choices allow for the utilization of thermo-optical or electro-optical effects, respectively. Remarkably, in both cases, complete phase modulation, combined with a 100% reflection amplitude, is observed, even when dealing with exceedingly low refractive index changes on the order of 0.01.To account for the strong nonlocal effect and enhance deflection efficiencies for each deflection angle, a sophisticated statistical learning optimization methodology is employed to optimize the refractive index modulation profile within the extended unit cell. As a result, active beam steering designs, leveraging the active thermo-optical effect, have been optimized to achieve exceptional performance exceeding 90%.Additionally, optimization efforts have been directed towards active wavefront splitting using electro-optic materials, leading to ultimate modulation performance levels with nearly 92% efficiency. The realization of highly efficient active beam shaping at high frequencies holds the potential for significant applications in areas such as imaging microscopy and three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR).

Abstract

International audience

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