Abstract
Describing a class of beams with space-variant polarization, vector beams find many applications in both classical and quantum optics. However, simultaneous manipulation of its space-dependent polarization states is still a challenge with a single optical element. Here we demonstrate polarization modulation of a vector field by employing a plasmonic metasurface exhibiting strong and controllable optical activity. By changing the lateral phase shift between two reflective metasurface supercells, the rotation angle of a linear polarized light can be continuously tuned from zero to π with a high efficiency. As the optical activity of our metasurface devices only depends on geometrical phase, the metasurfaces can simultaneously modulate the rotation angle of a vector beam regardless of its space-variant polarization distribution. Our work provides a high efficient method in manipulating the polarization state of vector beams, especially with metasurface in a compact space, which presents great potential in research fields involving vector beams.
Highlights
The capability of manipulating the local polarization states of light is of vital importance in both fundamental studies and applications
As the optical activity of our metasurface devices only depends on geometrical phase, the metasurfaces can simultaneously modulate the rotation angle of a vector beam regardless of its space-variant polarization distribution
Our work provides a high efficient method in manipulating the polarization state of vector beams, especially with metasurface in a compact space, which presents great potential in research fields involving vector beams
Summary
The capability of manipulating the local polarization states of light is of vital importance in both fundamental studies and applications. Geometric metasurfaces that can introduce robust and dispersionless phase jumps along the light path to manipulate phase, amplitude, and polarization of light over subwavelength propagation distances have shown great advantages in realizing integrated optical devices, such as anomalous reflection/refraction [30,31,32,33,34,35], directional couplers for surface plasmon polaritons [36,37,38], planar focusing lenses [39,40,41,42], high-resolution optical holograms [43,44,45,46,47,48] and beam structuring [49,50]. Four different samples are designed and fabricated to show the modulation ability of the metasurface with superior robustness and efficiency
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