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Optical image encryption with an ultrathin nonlinear metasurface
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Gradient metasurfaces have recently been demonstrated to provide control of the phase of scattered fields over subwavelength scales, enabling a broad range of linear optical components in a flat, ultrathin, integrable platform. Additionally, the development of nonlinear metasurfaces has disrupted conventional nonlinear optical device design by relaxing phase matching constraints, reducing size and dimensionality, and providing record values of localized nonlinear responses. However, extending the “flat optics” paradigm to the nonlinear case faces important challenges, since we are required to simultaneously achieve efficient frequency conversion and sub-diffractive phase control. Here, we experimentally demonstrate continuous phase control of the giant nonlinear second harmonic optical response from metasurfaces tied to intersubband transitions in semiconductor multi-quantum wells, establishing an exciting path toward realizing the vision of flat, nonlinear optics.
We apply the Pancharatnam-Berry phase approach to plasmonic metasurfaces
loaded by highly nonlinear multi-quantum well substrates, establishing a
platform to control the nonlinear wavefront at will based on giant localized
nonlinear effects. We apply this approach to design flat nonlinear metasurfaces
for efficient second-harmonic radiation, including beam steering, focusing, and
polarization manipulation. Our findings open a new direction for nonlinear
optics, in which phase matching issues are relaxed, and an unprecedented level
of local wavefront control is achieved over thin devices with giant nonlinear
responses.
The capability of locally engineering the nonlinear optical properties of media is crucial in nonlinear optics. Although poling is the most widely employed technique for achieving locally controlled nonlinearity, it leads only to a binary nonlinear state, which is equivalent to a discrete phase change of π in the nonlinear polarizability. Here, inspired by the concept of spin-rotation coupling, we experimentally demonstrate nonlinear metasurfaces with homogeneous linear optical properties but spatially varying effective nonlinear polarizability with continuously controllable phase. The continuous phase control over the local nonlinearity is demonstrated for second and third harmonic generation by using nonlinear metasurfaces consisting of nanoantennas of C3 and C4 rotational symmetries, respectively. The continuous phase engineering of the effective nonlinear polarizability enables complete control over the propagation of harmonic generation signals. Therefore, this method seamlessly combines the generation and manipulation of harmonic waves, paving the way for highly compact nonlinear nanophotonic devices.