On-chip wavefront shaping with dielectric metasurface

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 3547 - 7
• Main Authors: Wang, Zi, Li, Tiantian, Soman, Anishkumar, Mao, Dun, Kananen, Thomas, Gu, Tingyi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 07.08.2019; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 132/122; 142/126; 147/135; 639/166; 639/624/399/1015; 639/766/400/1103; Bandwidths; Data processing; Design; Efficiency; Fourier transforms; Humanities and Social Sciences; Light; Metasurfaces; multidisciplinary; Optical communication; Optics; Periodic structures; Quantum phenomena; Scattering; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Signal processing; Silica; Silicon; Silicon substrates; Spectrometers; Systems design; Wave fronts
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11578-y

Metasurfaces can be programmed for a spatial transformation of the wavefront, thus allowing parallel optical signal processing on-chip within an ultracompact dimension. On-chip metasurfaces have been implemented with two-dimensional periodic structures, however, their inherent scattering loss limits their large-scale implementation. The scattering can be minimized in single layer high-contrast transmitarray (HCTA) metasurface. Here we demonstrate a one-dimensional HCTA based lens defined on a standard silicon-on-insulator substrate, with its high transmission (<1 dB loss) maintained over a 200 nm bandwidth. Three layers of the HCTAs are cascaded for demonstrating meta-system functionalities of Fourier transformation and differentiation. The meta-system design holds potential for realizing on-chip transformation optics, mathematical operations and spectrometers, with applications in areas of imaging, sensing and quantum information processing. Metasurfaces can be programmed for a spatial transformation of the wavefront, allowing on-chip optical signal processing. Here, the authors demonstrate a one-dimensional high-contrast transmitarray metasurface-based lens on SOI substrate and demonstrate functionalities of Fourier transformation and differentiation.