Metasurface-based decoupling of optical properties and the related multifunctional meta-devices

Abstract

In recent years, integrating multiple functionalities into a single metasurface has become an emerging approach in advanced metasurface research for information multiplexing. The typical approaches include supercell design and/or multilayer design, which are essentially an integration of several metasurfaces and the information capacity of each metasurface has not been increased yet. Here, by fully exploiting the design degrees of freedom of nanostructures and decoupling the optical properties of incident light, we show metasurfaces with single-cell design can act as different functional devices to manipulate different optical properties at the same time. Hence, we can integrate different metadevices such as nanoprints and holograms into a single metasurface, which can significantly improve the information density, functionality and security of metasurfaces. Our research provides a new strategy to design multifunctional metasurfaces without burdening the nanostructure design and manufacturing, and we expect that a variety of novel nanooptical applications such as multi-folded optical anticounterfeiting, high-density optical storage, ultracompact information encryption, ultraportable image display for AR/VR and so on will emerge from our approach.