Prospects of metasurface applications (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Metasurfaces are planar optical devices consisting of artificially fabricated photonic meta-atoms with unique optical responses, and have been extensively studied for thier extraordinary abilities to modulate electromagnetic waves. The field of metasurfaces have focused on the wavefront shaping, and many approaches have been proposed to implement novel optical devices with various versatility. In particular, metasurfaces have been shown to be able to implement high-quality holographic reconstructions of light with both spatial amplitude and phase information at the subwavelength-scale resolution, expected to be applied for the next generation imaging technology such as three-dimensional holographic imaging and optical data storage. In addition, metasurface lenses, called metalenses, have such powerful features as flatness, high numerical aperture, and multi-functions that do not appear in convensional optical lenses. Based on these meta-optics, recent advances in metasurfaces have led to the development of new optical applications using these meta-optics, and several studies have begun to be reported recently. In this talk, several optical metasurface platforms for manipulation of electromagnetic waves will be presented. We will outline the physical mechanisms and concepts of the optical metasurfaces. A variety of metasurfaces providing amplitude, phase and polarization modulations will be introduced and discussed about their features. Then, we will discuss their recent states for optical applications such as holography, microscope, and augmented reality. Especially, our recent works that show their feasiblity in augmented reality imaging with ultrawide field of view not shown in convensional optics. Finally, our perspectives in this area will be discussed.