Spin of light provides a route to control photons. Spin-based optical devices which can manipulate photons with different spin states are imperative. Here we experimentally demonstrated a spin-selected metasurface lens based on the spin-orbit interaction originated from the Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase. The optimized PB phase enables the light with different spin states to be focused on two separated points in the preset plane. Furthermore, the metasurface lens can perform the spin-selected imaging according to the polarization of the illuminating light. Such a spin-based device capacitates a lot of advanced applications for spin-controlled photonics in quantum information processing and communication based on the spin and orbit angular momentum.
Based on the amplitude and phase modulation of subwavelength slits, a metasurface which can simultaneously generate Airy beam for surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) and transmitted wave is presented. Interestingly, by changing the handedness of circularly polarized light, the position of SPPs Airy beam can be switched to the left or right side of the metasurface, while the field distribution and the position of the Airy beam for transmitted wave are not affected. The nondiffracting, self-bending and self-healing properties of the generated Airy beams are analyzed as well. In addition, abruptly autofocusing of SPPs and transmitted wave are demonstrated by interfering two Airy beams. The dual functionality and chirality features of the metasurface can provide more freedoms in the potential applications of Airy beams.
An abruptly autofocusing ring-Airy beam is demonstrated in the terahertz (THz) waveband with a meta-hologram. The designed meta-hologram is composed of gold C-shaped slot antennas, which can realize both phase and amplitude modulation of the incident THz wave. A THz holographic imaging system is utilized to measure the generated ring-Airy beam; an abrupt focus following a parabolic trajectory is subsequently observed. THz ring-Airy beams with different parameters are also generated and investigated. This method can be expanded to other wavebands, such as the visible band, for which the meta-hologram can replace traditional computer-generated holography to avoid undesirable multiple diffraction orders.
Taking advantage of the phase modulation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) generated by subwavelength slits, we elaborately designed an axicon-shaped slit array to dynamically manipulate the profiles of Bessel-like SPPs beams by changing the polarization of the incident light. As the polarization direction of linearly polarized light changes from horizontal to vertical, the profile of SPPs beam will evolve from the zeroth-order Bessel function to the first-order Bessel function. For circularly polarized light, the geometry Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase is introduced and can lead to the transverse shift of the main lobe of SPPs beam. The evolution of the beam profile and the distance of the transverse shift are theoretically illustrated by analyzing the phase distribution of SPPs. The proposed versatile approach suggests charming applications including on-chip communications, polarization-controlled particle manipulation and the design of polarization-based dynamic SPPs devices.
The complete vector information of converging terahertz (THz) beams with linear, circular, and cylindrical vortex polarization are precisely measured by using a THz digital holographic imaging system. The transverse (, ) and longitudinal () polarization components of the THz fields around the focal point are separately obtained utilizing the detection crystals with different crystalline orientations. The measured results are in good agreement with the theoretical expectations. This imaging technique provides an effective way for revealing the vector diffraction properties of the THz electro-magnetic waves.
A practical circular polarization analyzer (CPA) that can selectively focus surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) at two separate locations, according to the helicity of the circularly polarized light, is designed and experimentally verified in the terahertz frequency range. The CPA consists of fishbone-slit units and is designed using the simulated annealing algorithm. By differentially detecting the intensities of the two SPPs focuses, the helicity of the incident circularly polarized light can be obtained and the CPA is less vulnerable to the noise of incident light. The proposed device may also have wide potential applications in chiral SPPs photonics and the analysis of chiral molecules in biology.