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Broadband generation of perfect Poincaré beams via dielectric spin-multiplexed metasurface

Published

Author(s)

Mingze Liu, Pengcheng Huo, Wenqi Zhu, Cheng Zhang, Si Zhang, Maowen Song, Song Zhang, Qianwei Zhou, Lu Chen, Henri Lezec, Amit Agrawal, Yanqing Lu, Ting Xu

Abstract

Poincaré beam, which describes the space-variant polarization of a light beam carrying spin angular momentum (SAM) and orbital angular momentum (OAM), plays an important role in various optical applications. Since the radius of a Poincaré beam depends on the topological charge number, it is difficult to generate a stable and high-quality Poincaré beam by two optical vortices with different topological charge numbers, as the formed Poincaré beam collapses upon propagation. Here, based on an all-dielectric metasurface platform, we experimentally demonstrate broadband generation of perfect Poincaré beam (PPB), whose radius is independent of the topological charge number. By utilizing a phase-only modulation approach, a single-layer metasurface composed of an array of subwavelength-spaced titanium dioxide nanopillars is shown to achieve all the states of PPBs on hybrid-order Poincaré Sphere for visible light. Furthermore, as a proof-of-concept demonstration, a metasurface encoding multidimensional SAM and OAM states in the parallel channels of elliptical and circular PPBs is implemented for optical information encryption. We envision this work to provide a compact and efficient platform for generation of PPBs for visible light, and to promote their applications in optical communications, information encryption, optical data storage and quantum information sciences.
Citation
Nature Communications
Volume
12
Issue
1

Citation

Liu, M. , Huo, P. , Zhu, W. , Zhang, C. , Zhang, S. , Song, M. , Zhang, S. , Zhou, Q. , Chen, L. , Lezec, H. , Agrawal, A. , Lu, Y. and Xu, T. (2021), Broadband generation of perfect Poincaré beams via dielectric spin-multiplexed metasurface, Nature Communications, [online], https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-22462-z , https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=930295 (Accessed March 29, 2024)
Created April 13, 2021, Updated October 14, 2021