Abstract
AbstractVectorial optical fields (VOFs) exhibiting tailored wave fronts and spatially inhomogeneous polarization distributions are particularly useful in photonic applications. However, devices to generate them, made by natural materials or recently proposed metasurfaces, are either bulky in size or less efficient, or exhibit restricted performances. Here, we propose a general approach to design metadevices that can efficiently generate two distinct VOFs under illuminations of circularly polarized lights with different helicity. After illustrating our scheme via both Jones matrix analyses and analytical model calculations, we experimentally demonstrate two metadevices in the near-infrared regime, which can generate vortex beams carrying different orbital angular momenta yet with distinct inhomogeneous polarization distributions. Our results provide an ultracompact platform for bifunctional generations of VOFs, which may stimulate future works on VOF-related applications in integration photonics.
Highlights
Vectorial optical fields (VOFs) are special solutions of Maxwell’s equations, which exhibit well-defined wave fronts and tailored inhomogeneous distributions of polarization state [1, 2]
We propose a generic approach to design metadevices that can efficiently generate two distinct VOFs with designable polarization distributions, upon excitations of circularly polarized (CP) lights with two opposite helicity
As the proof of our concept, we experimentally demonstrate two metadevices working at telecom wavelengths, which can achieve bifunctional generations of distinct VOFs exhibiting vortex wave fronts with different orbital angular momenta (OAM) and inhomogeneous polarization distributions including standard and more general ones
Summary
Vectorial optical fields (VOFs) are special solutions of Maxwell’s equations, which exhibit well-defined wave fronts and tailored inhomogeneous distributions of polarization ( called “spin”) state [1, 2]. The latter, unique to electromagnetic (EM) waves being vectorial in nature, make VOFs useful in many applications such as optical communications, biosensing and chemical sensing, particle trapping and high-resolution imaging [2, 3]. Conventional approaches to generate VOFs require separate devices to control wave fronts (e.g., spatial light modulators [4]) and inhomogeneous polarization distributions (e.g., Q-plate [5] or spiral phase elements [6]) of light, which are bulky and complicated. Designing metasurfaces to exhibit certain anisotropic or spatially inhomogeneous phase distributions for reflected/transmitted waves, researchers have demonstrated separate manipulations on polarization [10,11,12] or wave front [13,14,15,16,17,18] properties of EM waves, leading to many practical applications
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