Abstract
AbstractRapidly growing demands for high-performance computing, powerful data processing, and big data necessitate the advent of novel optical devices to perform demanding computing processes effectively. Due to its unprecedented growth in the past two decades, the field of meta-optics offers a viable solution for spatially, spectrally, and/or even temporally sculpting amplitude, phase, polarization, and/or dispersion of optical wavefronts. In this review, we discuss state-of-the-art developments, as well as emerging trends, in computational metastructures as disruptive platforms for spatial optical analog computation. Two fundamental approaches based on general concepts of spatial Fourier transformation and Green’s function (GF) are discussed in detail. Moreover, numerical investigations and experimental demonstrations of computational optical surfaces and metastructures for solving a diverse set of mathematical problems (e.g., integrodifferentiation and convolution equations) necessary for on-demand information processing (e.g., edge detection) are reviewed. Finally, we explore the current challenges and the potential resolutions in computational meta-optics followed by our perspective on future research directions and possible developments in this promising area.
Highlights
Optics has proved to be an unrivaled means of communication between two points as close as two chipscale modules or as far as two intercontinental data centers
In addition to so far demonstrated platforms enabling mathematical operators, several other theoretical works exist in the literature using spatial Fourier transformation concept to realize first-order differentiation using bilayered metasurfaces [43], differential and integral operations using Ag dendritic metasurfaces [44, 45], and multiway parallel mathematical operations based on discrete metamaterials [46]
Modulated by an arbitrary 2D signal profile f(x, y). This field profile can be decomposed into transverse electric (TE) and magnetic (TM) linearly polarized plane waves when represented in the wave vector space
Summary
Optics has proved to be an unrivaled means of communication between two points as close as two chipscale modules or as far as two intercontinental data centers. As the most interesting paradigm, metastructures (including both metamaterials and metasurfaces [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33]) hold great promise to imprint the desired transformations in amplitude, phase, and polarization of the impinging light thanks to the (sub) wavelength-scale scatterers with optimized size, shape, orientation, and composition Motivated by such technological developments, Engheta et al recently introduced the concept of “computational metamaterials” [34]. These new paradigms offer real-time spatial wave-based processing mechanisms through miniaturized all-optical computing machines or potentially integratable hardware accelerators
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