基于轻薄硬质超表面的空气声波反射场操控

对反射声波的复杂操控是声学研究的基础问题之一,并广泛应用于房间声学设计及噪声能量消除等重要场合。近年来出现的声学超表面为声学功能器件的小型化提供了新的启示,因此如何进一步缩减其尺寸和重量具有重要的物理意义与应用价值。展示了一种轻薄超表面结构对低频空气声波所产生反射声场的高效、精准操控。通过理论计算证明了利用简单的扁平中空结构,可在不显著牺牲能量反射率及结构强度的前提下,通过调控单个结构参数产生0~2π范围内的反射相位,同时避免了制备难度高和增加器件重量的复杂内部结构,因此具有尺寸超薄(λ₀/20)、重量轻盈、反射率高及制备简单等优势。通过实现任意角度的异常反射、基于超薄平面透镜的可调声聚焦、构建平面棱锥镜产生类贝塞尔声束3个典型例子展示了该器件对反射声波的丰富操控性能。实现基于轻薄超表面对反射声场的操控,有助于新型平面声学器件的研究与应用,并有望在建筑声学、噪声控制、扬声器设计等领域中产生重要价值。     

0.2 λ0 Thick Adaptive Retroreflector Made of Spin‐Locked Metasurface

The metasurface concept is employed to planarize retroflectors by stacking two metasurfaces with separation that is two orders larger than the wavelength. Here, a retroreflective metasurface using subwavelength‐thick reconfigurable C‐shaped resonators (RCRs) is reported, which reduces the overall thickness from the previous record of 590 λ₀ down to only 0.2 λ₀. The geometry of RCRs could be in situ controlled to realize equal amplitude and phase modulation onto transverse magnetic (TM)‐polarized and transverse electric (TE)‐polarized incidences. With the phase gradient being engineered, an in‐plane momentum could be imparted to the incident wave, guaranteeing the spin state of the retro‐reflected wave identical to that of the incident light. Such spin‐locked metasurface is natively adaptive toward different incident angles to realize retroreflection by mechanically altering the geometry of RCRs. As a proof of concept, an ultrathin retroreflective metasurface is validated at 15 GHz, under various illumination angles at 10°, 12°, 15°, and 20°. Such adaptive spin‐locked metasurface could find promising applications in spin‐based optical devices, communication systems, remote sensing, RCS enhancement, and so on.     

Imaging through Nonlinear Metalens Using Second Harmonic Generation

The abrupt phase change of light at metasurfaces provides high flexibility in wave manipulation without the need for accumulation of propagating phase through dispersive materials. In the linear optical regime, one important application field of metasurfaces is imaging by planar metalenses, which enables device miniaturization and aberration correction compared to conventional optical microlens systems. With the incorporation of nonlinear responses into passive metasurfaces, optical functionalities of metalenses are anticipated to be further enriched, leading to completely new application areas. Here, imaging with nonlinear metalenses that combine the function of an ultrathin planar lens with simultaneous frequency conversion is demonstrated. With such nonlinear metalenses, imaging of objects with near infrared light while the image appears in the second harmonic signal of visible frequency range is experimentally demonstrated. Furthermore, the functionality of these nonlinear metalenses can be modified by switching the handedness of the circularly polarized fundamental wave, leading to either real or virtual nonlinear image formation. Nonlinear metalenses not only enable infrared light imaging through a visible detector but also have the ability to modulate nonlinear optical responses through an ultrathin metasurface device while the fundamental wave remains unaffected, which offers the capability of nonlinear information processing with novel optoelectronic devices.     

Quasicrystal Photonic Metasurfaces for Radiation Controlling of Second Harmonic Generation

Photonic metasurfaces, a kind of 2D structured medium, represent a novel platform to manipulate the propagation of light at subwavelength scale. In linear optical regime, many interesting topics such as planar meta‐lenses, metasurface optical holography, and so on have been widely investigated. Recently, metasurfaces have gone into the nonlinear optical regime. While it is recognized that the local symmetry of the meta‐atoms plays a vital role in determining the polarization, phase, and intensity of the nonlinear waves, much less attention has been paid to the global symmetry of the nonlinear metasurfaces. According to the Penrose tiling and the newly proposed hexagonal quasicrystalline tiling, nonlinear optical quasicrystal metasurfaces are designed and fabricated based on the geometric‐phase‐controlled plasmonic meta‐atoms with local rotational symmetry. It is found that the far‐field radiation behavior of second harmonic generation waves are determined by both the tiling schemes of quasicrystal metasurfaces and the local symmetry of meta‐atoms they consist of. The proposed concept may open new avenues for designing nonlinear optical sources with metasurface crystals.     

基于高鲁棒性超声超表面的声束定向发射

基于超薄平面型超声超表面构建了超声束定向发射器件,利用有限元仿真验证了声束定向发射的高效性和采用不同单元结构配置时定向发射效果的高鲁棒性。所设计的超表面器件由结构单元周期性排列而成,在保持结构周期性不变的条件下,尽管结构单元几何形状呈随机分布、或者结构中存在几何缺陷,但仍可有效地保持声束定向发射的良好性能。基于超声超表面的超声束定向发射器件具有结构设计简单、定向准确性高、灵活性强、适用范围广等优点,在工业无损检测、水下探测、医学超声工程等领域具有广泛的应用前景。     

Ultrafast Coherent Absorption in Diamond Metamaterials

Diamond is introduced as a material platform for visible/near‐infrared photonic metamaterials, with a nanostructured polycrystalline diamond metasurface only 170 nm thick providing an experimental demonstration of coherent light‐by‐light modulation at few‐optical‐cycle (6 fs) pulse durations. “Coherent control” of absorption in planar (subwavelength‐thickness) materials has emerged recently as a mechanism for high‐contrast all‐optical gating, with a speed of response that is limited only by the spectral width of the absorption line. It is shown here that a free‐standing diamond membrane structured by focused ion beam milling can provide strong, spectrally near‐flat absorption over a visible to near‐infrared wavelength range that is wide enough (wider than is characteristically achievable in plasmonic metal metasurfaces) to facilitate coherent modulation of ultrashort optical pulses comprising only a few oscillations of electromagnetic field.     

Ge2Sb2Te5‐Based Tunable Perfect Absorber Cavity with Phase Singularity at Visible Frequencies

The metal‐dielectric stacks‐based asymmetric Fabry–Perot (F–P) cavity systems have recently attracted much interest from the scientific community for realizing perfect absorption over the spectral bands from visible to infrared since they possess a lithography‐free design that is cost‐effective and scalable. This study experimentally demonstrates an asymmetric F–P cavity system for achieving tunable wide angle perfect absorption and phase singularity. The proposed system shows tunable multiband perfect absorption in the visible spectral region by incorporating an ultrathin layer of phase change material such as Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) in the stack. The system shows multi‐narrowband perfect absorption with a maximum of 99.8% at a specific incident angle and polarization state when the GST is in amorphous phase; however, the absorption bands blueshift and broaden after switching to the crystalline phase. More importantly, the proposed scheme shows tunable phase singularity at the reflection‐less point. The obtained tunable perfect absorption and abrupt phase change are solely due to the presence of a highly absorbing ultrathin layer of GST in the stack. Experimental results are validated using an analytical simulation model based on a transfer matrix method. The proposed scheme could find potential applications in active photonic devices such as phase‐sensitive biosensors and absorption filters.     

Metamaterial-plasmonic absorber structure for high efficiency amorphous silicon solar cells

We show that a planar structure, consisting of an ultrathin semiconducting layer topped with a solid nanoscopically perforated metallic film and then a dielectric interference film, can highly absorb (superabsorb) electromagnetic radiation in the entire visible range, and thus can become a platform for high-efficiency solar cells. The perforated metallic film and the ultrathin absorber in this broadband superabsorber form a metamaterial effective film, which negatively refracts light in this broad frequency range. Our quantitative simulations confirm that the superabsorption bandwidth is maximized at the checkerboard pattern of the perforations. These simulations show also that the energy conversion efficiency of a single-junction amorphous silicon solar cell based on our optimized structure can exceed 12%.     

Embedded Metal Oxide Plasmonics Using Local Plasma Oxidation of AZO for Planar Metasurfaces

New methods for achieving high-quality conducting oxide metasurfaces are of great importance for a range of emerging applications from infrared thermal control coatings to epsilon-near-zero nonlinear optics. This work demonstrates the viability of plasma patterning as a technique to selectively and locally modulate the carrier density in planar Al-doped ZnO (AZO) metasurfaces without any associated topographical surface profile. This technique stands in strong contrast to conventional physical patterning which results in nonplanar textured surfaces. The approach can open up a new route to form novel photonic devices with planar metasurfaces, for example, antireflective coatings and multi-layer devices. To demonstrate the performance of the carrier-modulated AZO metasurfaces, two types of devices are realized using the demonstrated plasma patterning. A metasurface optical solar reflector is shown to produce infrared emissivity equivalent to a conventional etched design. Second, a multiband metasurface is achieved by integrating a Au visible-range metasurface on top of the planar AZO infrared metasurface. Independent control of spectral bands without significant cross-talk between infrared and visible functionalities is achieved. Local carrier tuning of conducting oxide films offers a conceptually new approach for oxide-based photonics and nanoelectronics and opens up new routes for integrated planar metasurfaces in optical technology.     

卷曲空间型超表面对声波的调控

声学超表面具有天然材料所不具备的独特属性,为声学器件的设计提供了多样性。以广义斯涅尔定律为理论基础,设计了具有多种声波调控能力的折射型相位梯度超表面。该超表面由8个具有不同结构参数的卷曲空间单元结构组合而成,在中心频率3 500 Hz附近,8个单元结构的相位覆盖π范围且声波透射率较高。通过合理地设计超表面水平方向上的相位梯度变化,能够实现对声波的任意调控,在理论和有限元仿真上依次实现了异常折射、无衍射贝塞尔声束和声聚焦。这种厚度薄、透射率高的声超表面,在声学器件设计方面具有潜在的应用价值。     

Film Flip and Transfer Process to Enhance Light Harvesting in Ultrathin Absorber Films on Specular Back‐Reflectors

Optical interference is used to enhance light–matter interaction and harvest broadband light in ultrathin semiconductor absorber films on specular back‐reflectors. However, the high‐temperature processing in oxygen atmosphere required for oxide absorbers often degrades metallic back‐reflectors and their specular reflectance. In order to overcome this problem, a newly developed film flip and transfer process is presented that enables high‐temperature processing without degradation of the metallic back‐reflector and without the need of passivation interlayers. The film flip and transfer process improves the performance of photoanodes for photoelectrochemical water splitting comprising ultrathin (<20 nm) hematite (α‐Fe₂O₃) films on silver–gold alloy (90 at% Ag–10 at% Au) back‐reflectors. Specular back‐reflectors are obtained with high reflectance below hematite films, which is necessary for maximizing the productive light absorption in the hematite film and minimizing nonproductive absorption in the back‐reflector. Furthermore, the film flip and transfer process opens up a new route to attach thin film stacks onto a wide range of substrates including flexible or temperature sensitive materials.     

Multifunctional Hyperbolic Nanogroove Metasurface for Submolecular Detection

Metasurface serves as a promising plasmonic sensing platform for engineering the enhanced light–matter interactions. Here, a hyperbolic metasurface with the nanogroove structure in the subwavelength scale is designed. This metasurface is able to modify the wavefront and wavelength of surface plasmon wave with the variation of the nanogroove width or periodicity. At the specific optical frequency, surface plasmon polaritons are tightly confined and propagated with a diffraction‐free feature due to the epsilon‐near‐zero effect. Most importantly, the groove hyperbolic metasurface can enhance the plasmonic sensing with an ultrahigh phase sensitivity of 30 373 deg RIU^?1 and Goos–Hänchen shift sensitivity of 10.134 mm RIU^?1. The detection resolution for refractive index change of glycerol solution is achieved as 10^?8 RIU based on the phase measurement. The detection limit of bovine serum albumin (BSA) molecule is measured as low as 0.1 × 10^?18m (1 × 10^?19 mol L^?1), which corresponds to a submolecular detection level (0.13 BSA mm^?2). As for low‐weight biotin molecule, the detection limit is estimated below 1 × 10^?15m (1 × 10^?15 mol L^?1, 1300 biotin mm^?2). This enhanced plasmonic sensing performance is two orders of magnitude higher than those with current state‐of‐art plasmonic metamaterials and metasurfaces.     

Breaking Reciprocity with Space‐Time‐Coding Digital Metasurfaces

Metasurfaces are artificially engineered ultrathin structures that can finely tailor and control electromagnetic wavefronts. There is currently a strong interest in exploring their capability to lift some fundamental limitations dictated by Lorentz reciprocity, which have strong implications in communication, heat management, and energy harvesting. Time‐varying approaches have emerged as attractive alternatives to conventional schemes relying on magnetic or nonlinear materials, but experimental evidence is currently limited to devices such as circulators and antennas. Here, the recently proposed concept of space‐time‐coding digital metasurfaces is leveraged to break reciprocity. Moreover, it is shown that such nonreciprocal effects can be controlled dynamically. This approach relies on inducing suitable spatiotemporal phase gradients in a programmable way via digital modulation of the metasurface‐elements' phase repsonse, which enable anomalous reflections accompanied by frequency conversions. A prototype operating at microwave frequencies is designed and fabricated for proof‐of‐concept validation. Measured results are in good agreement with theory, hence providing the first experimental evidence of nonreciprocal reflection effects enabled by space‐time‐modulated digital metasurfaces. The proposed concept and platform set the stage for “on‐demand” realization of nonreciprocal effects, in programmable or reconfigurable fashions, which may find several promising applications, including frequency conversion, Doppler frequency illusion, optical isolation, and unidirectional transmission.     

Polarization Encoded Color Image Embedded in a Dielectric Metasurface

Optical metasurfaces have shown unprecedented capabilities in the local manipulation of the light's phase, intensity, and polarization profiles, and represent a new viable technology for applications such as high‐density optical storage, holography and display. Here, a novel metasurface platform is demonstrated for simultaneously encoding color and intensity information into the wavelength‐dependent polarization profile of a light beam. Unlike typical metasurface devices in which images are encoded by phase or amplitude modulation, the color image here is multiplexed into several sets of polarization profiles, each corresponding to a distinct color, which further allows polarization modulation‐induced additive color mixing. This unique approach features the combination of wavelength selectivity and arbitrary polarization control down to a single subwavelength pixel level. The encoding approach for polarization and color may open a new avenue for novel, effective color display elements with fine control over both brightness and contrast, and may have significant impact for high‐density data storage, information security, and anticounterfeiting.     

Multichannel‐Independent Information Encoding with Optical Metasurfaces

Optical metasurfaces, as an emerging platform, have been shown to be capable of effectively manipulating the local properties (amplitude, phase, and polarization) of the reflected or transmitted light and have unique strengths in high‐density optical storage, holography, display, etc. The reliability and flexibility of wavefront manipulation makes optical metasurfaces suitable for information encryption by increasing the possibility of encoding combinations of independent channels and the capacity of encryption, and thus the security level. Here, recent progress in metasurface‐based information encoding is reviewed, in which the independent channels for information encoding are built with wavelength and/or polarization in one‐dimensional/two‐dimensional (1D/2D) modes. The way to increase information encoding capacity and security level is proposed, and the opportunities and challenges of information encoding with independent channels based on metasurfaces are discussed.     

Phototunable Dielectric Huygens' Metasurfaces

Conventional dielectric metasurfaces achieve their properties through geometrical tuning and consequently are static. Although some unique properties are demonstrated, the usefulness for realistic applications is thus inherently limited. Here, control of the resonant eigenmodes supported by Huygens' metasurface (HMS) absorbers through optical excitation is proposed and demonstrated. An intensity transmission modulation depth of 99.93% is demonstrated at 1.03 THz, with an associated phase change of greater than π/2 rad. Coupled mode theory and S‐parameter simulations are used to elucidate the mechanism underlying the dynamics of the metasurface and it is found that the tuning is primarily governed by modification of the magnetic dipole‐like odd eigenmode, which both lifts the degeneracy, and eliminates critical coupling. The dynamic HMS demonstrates wide tunability and versatility which is not limited to the spectral range demonstrated, offering a new path for reconfigurable metasurface applications.     

Tailoring MoS2 Valley‐Polarized Photoluminescence with Super Chiral Near‐Field

Transition metal dichalcogenides with intrinsic spin–valley degrees of freedom hold great potentials for applications in spintronic and valleytronic devices. MoS₂ monolayer possesses two inequivalent valleys in the Brillouin zone, with each valley coupling selectively with circularly polarized photons. The degree of valley polarization (DVP) is a parameter to characterize the purity of valley‐polarized photoluminescence (PL) of MoS₂ monolayer. Usually, the detected values of DVP in MoS₂ monolayer show achiral property under optical excitation of opposite helicities due to reciprocal phonon‐assisted intervalley scattering process. Here, it is reported that valley‐polarized PL of MoS₂ can be tailored through near‐field interaction with plasmonic chiral metasurface. The resonant field of the chiral metasurface couples with valley‐polarized excitons, and tailors the measured PL spectra in the far‐field, resulting in observation of chiral DVP of MoS₂‐metasurface under opposite helicities excitations. Valley‐contrast PL in the chiral heterostructure is also observed when illuminated by linearly polarized light. The manipulation of valley‐polarized PL in 2D materials using chiral metasurface represents a viable route toward valley‐polaritonic devices.     

Millivolt Modulation of Plasmonic Metasurface Optical Response via Ionic Conductance

A plasmonic metasurface with an electrically tunable optical response that operates at strikingly low modulation voltages is experimentally demonstrated. The fabricated metasurface shows up to 30% relative change in reflectance in the visible spectral range upon application of 5 mV and 78% absolute change in reflectance upon application of 100 mV of bias. The designed metasurface consists of nanostructured silver and indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes which are separated by 5 nm thick alumina. The millivolt‐scale optical modulation is attributed to a new modulation mechanism, in which transport of silver ions through alumina dielectric leads to bias‐induced nucleation and growth of silver nanoparticles in the ITO counter‐electrode, altering the optical extinction response. This transport mechanism, which occurs at applied electric fields of 1 mV nm^?1, provides a new approach to use of ionic transport for electrical control over light–matter interactions.     

Planar Diffractive Lenses: Fundamentals,Functionalities, and Applications

Traditional objective lenses in modern microscopy, based on the refraction of light, are restricted by the Rayleigh diffraction limit. The existing methods to overcome this limit can be categorized into near‐field (e.g., scanning near‐field optical microscopy, superlens, microsphere lens) and far‐field (e.g., stimulated emission depletion microscopy, photoactivated localization microscopy, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy) approaches. However, they either operate in the challenging near‐field mode or there is the need to label samples in biology. Recently, through manipulation of the diffraction of light with binary masks or gradient metasurfaces, some miniaturized and planar lenses have been reported with intriguing functionalities such as ultrahigh numerical aperture, large depth of focus, and subdiffraction‐limit focusing in far‐field, which provides a viable solution for the label‐free superresolution imaging. Here, the recent advances in planar diffractive lenses (PDLs) are reviewed from a united theoretical account on diffraction‐based focusing optics, and the underlying physics of nanofocusing via constructive or destructive interference is revealed. Various approaches of realizing PDLs are introduced in terms of their unique performances and interpreted by using optical aberration theory. Furthermore, a detailed tutorial about applying these planar lenses in nanoimaging is provided, followed by an outlook regarding future development toward practical applications.     

Self‐Confined Growth of Ultrathin 2D Nonlayered Wide‐Bandgap Semiconductor CuBr Flakes

2D planar structures of nonlayered wide‐bandgap semiconductors enable distinguished electronic properties, desirable short wavelength emission, and facile construction of 2D heterojunction without lattice match. However, the growth of ultrathin 2D nonlayered materials is limited by their strong covalent bonded nature. Herein, the synthesis of ultrathin 2D nonlayered CuBr nanosheets with a thickness of about 0.91 nm and an edge size of 45 µm via a controllable self‐confined chemical vapor deposition method is described. The enhanced spin‐triplet exciton (Z_f, 2.98 eV) luminescence and polarization‐enhanced second‐harmonic generation based on the 2D CuBr flakes demonstrate the potential of short‐wavelength luminescent applications. Solar‐blind and self‐driven ultraviolet (UV) photodetectors based on the as‐synthesized 2D CuBr flakes exhibit a high photoresponsivity of 3.17 A W^?1, an external quantum efficiency of 1126%, and a detectivity (D*) of 1.4 × 10¹¹ Jones, accompanied by a fast rise time of 32 ms and a decay time of 48 ms. The unique nonlayered structure and novel optical properties of the 2D CuBr flakes, together with their controllable growth, make them a highly promising candidate for future applications in short‐wavelength light‐emitting devices, nonlinear optical devices, and UV photodetectors.