Optical Fiber-Integrated Metasurfaces: An Emerging Platform for Multiple Optical Applications

Bound states in the continuum in circular waveguides: toward the on-chip integration of nanofiber on silicon platform

In previously reported researches on bound state in the continuum (BIC) waveguides, almost all of them are demonstrated with top-down fabrication procedures, leading to inconvenience for post-manipulation and size tuning. Nanofibers with circular cross sections are the fundamental components to transport energy due to their intrinsic advantages of high flexibility and adjustability, which is replaceable and can be readily manipulated over size and position on the substrate. In this work, we explore the possibility of achieving on-chip integration of silica nanofiber onto a silicon-on-insulator platform. By constructing additional leakage channels in coupled nanofiber waveguides, coherently destructive interferences are successfully achieved. The heavy leakage losses from the low-index nanofiber to a high-index silicon substrate are completely eliminated with BIC, and the propagation length of the nanofiber waveguide is significantly improved.

Engineering Quantum Light Sources with Flat Optics

Quantum light sources are essential building blocks for many quantum technologies, enabling secure communication, powerful computing, and precise sensing and imaging. Recent advancements have witnessed a significant shift toward the utilization of "flat" optics with thickness at subwavelength scales for the development of quantum light sources. This approach offers notable advantages over conventional bulky counterparts, including compactness, scalability, and improved efficiency, along with added functionalities. This review focuses on the recent advances in leveraging flat optics to generate quantum light sources. Specifically, the generation of entangled photon pairs through spontaneous parametric down-conversion in nonlinear metasurfaces, and single photon emission from quantum emitters including quantum dots and color centers in 3D and 2D materials are explored. The review covers theoretical principles, fabrication techniques, and properties of these sources, with particular emphasis on the enhanced generation and engineering of quantum light sources using optical resonances supported by nanostructures. The diverse application range of these sources is discussed and the current challenges and perspectives in the field are highlighted.

Fabrication of multilevel metalenses using multiphoton lithography: from design to evaluation

We present a procedure for the design of multilevel metalenses and their fabrication with multiphoton-based direct laser writing. This work pushes this fast and versatile fabrication technique to its limits in terms of achievable feature size dimensions for the creation of compact high-numerical aperture metalenses on flat substrates and optical fiber tips. We demonstrate the design of metalenses with various numerical apertures up to 0.96, and optimize the fabrication process towards nanostructure shape reproducibility. We perform optical characterization of the metalenses towards spot size, focusing efficiency, and optical functionality with a fiber beam collimation design, and compare their performance with refractive and diffractive counterparts fabricated with the same technology.

Circular-target-style bifocal zoom metalens

Optical zoom plays an important role in realizing high-quality image magnification, especially in photography, telescopes, microscopes, etc. Compared to traditional bulky zoom lenses, the high versatility and flexibility of metalens design provide opportunities for modern electronic and photonic systems with demands for miniature and lightweight optical zoom. Here, we propose an ultra-thin, lightweight and compact bifocal zoom metalens, which consists of a conventional circular sub-aperture and a sparse annular sub-aperture with different focal lengths. The imaging resolutions of such single zoom metalens with 164 lp/mm and 117 lp/mm at magnifications of 1× and 2× have been numerically and experimentally demonstrated, respectively. Furthermore, clear zoom images of a dragonfly wing pattern have been also achieved using this zoom metalens, showing its distinctive aspect in biological imaging. Our results provide an approach for potential applications in integrated optical systems, miniaturized imaging devices, and wearable devices.

Optrode-Assisted Multiparametric Near-Infrared Spectroscopy for the Analysis of Liquids

We demonstrate a sensing scheme for liquid analytes that integrates multiple optical fiber sensors in a near-infrared spectrometer. With a simple optofluidic method, a broadband radiation is encoded in a time-domain interferogram and distributed to different sensing units that interrogate the sample simultaneously; the spectral readout of each unit is extracted from its output signal by a Fourier transform routine. The proposed method allows performing a multiparametric analysis of liquid samples in a compact setup where the radiation source, measurement units, and spectral readout are all integrated in a robust telecom optical fiber. An experimental validation is provided by combining a plasmonic nanostructured fiber probe and a transmission cuvette in the setup and demonstrating the simultaneous measurement of the absorption spectrum and the refractive index of water-methanol solutions.

A Mid-Infrared Multifunctional Optical Device Based on Fiber Integrated Metasurfaces

A metasurface is a two-dimensional structure with a subwavelength thickness that can be used to control electromagnetic waves. The integration of optical fibers and metasurfaces has received much attention in recent years. This integrated device has high flexibility and versatility. We propose an optical device based on fiber-integrated metasurfaces in the mid-infrared, which uses a hollow core anti-resonant fiber (HC-ARF) to confine light transmission in an air core. The integrated bilayer metasurfaces at the fiber end face can achieve transmissive modulation of the optical field emitted from the HC-ARF, and the Fano resonance excited by the metasurface can also be used to achieve refractive index (RI) sensing with high sensitivity and high figure of merit (FOM) in the mid-infrared band. In addition, we introduce a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) layer between the two metasurfaces; thus, we can achieve tunable function through temperature. This provides an integrated fiber multifunctional optical device in the mid-infrared band, which is expected to play an important role in the fields of high-power mid-infrared lasers, mid-infrared laser biomedicine, and gas trace detection.

Real-time full-color meta fiber endoscopy

The remarkable capacity of metasurfaces to exert precise control over the propagation of light has ushered in a realm of unprecedented possibilities for "Lab-on-fiber", and in this work, showcased real-time full-color imaging in a meta-optical fiber endoscope.

Full-Stokes parameters detection enabled by a non-interleaved fiber-compatible metasurface

Polarization of the optical field determines the way of light-matter interaction, which lays the foundation for various applications such as chiral spectroscopy, biomedical imaging, and machine vision. Currently, with the rise of the metasurface, miniaturized polarization detectors have attracted extensive interest. However, due to the limitation of the working area, it is still a challenge to integrate polarization detectors on the fiber end face. Here, we propose a design of compact non-interleaved metasurface that can be integrated on the tip of a large-mode-area photonic crystal fiber (LMA-PCF) to realize full-Stokes parameters detection. Through concurrent control over the dynamic phase and Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phase, different helical phases are assigned to the two orthogonal circular polarization bases, of which the amplitude contrast and relative phase difference can be represented by two non-overlapped foci and an interference ring pattern, respectively. Therefore, the determination of arbitrary polarization states through the proposed ultracompact fiber-compatible metasurface can be achieved. Moreover, we calculated full-Stokes parameters according to simulation results and obtained that the average detection deviation is relatively low at 2.84% for 20 elucidated samples. The novel metasurface exhibits excellent polarization detection performance and overcomes the limitation of the small integrated area, which provides insights into the further practical explorations of ultracompact polarization detection devices.

Metasurface around the side surface of an optical fiber for light focusing

Optical fibers integrated with metasurfaces have drawn tremendous interest in recent years due to the great potential for revolutionizing and functionalizing traditional optics. However, in most cases, metasurfaces have been placed on the fiber end-facet where the area is quite limited. Here, by dressing a series of identical dielectric rings around the side surface of the microfiber and adjusting their positions along the microfiber axis, we extracted guided waves into free-space radiation with continuously controllable phase shift and achieved circular-arc-shaped line focusing. We demonstrated that the off-fiber foci could be rotated around the fiber axis by tuning the polarization of the guided waves. In addition, we demonstrated that the shape of the focus could be further tuned by introducing symmetry breaking into the dielectric rings. Our study provides a new dimension for the design of optical fiber devices decorated with metasurfaces.

Transmissive Polarizer Metasurfaces: From Microwave to Optical Regimes

Metasurfaces, a special class of metamaterials, have recently become a rapidly growing field, particularly for thin polarization converters. They can be fabricated using a simple fabrication process due to their smaller planar profile, both in the microwave and optical regimes. In this paper, the recent progress in MSs for linear polarization (LP) to circular polarization (CP) conversion in transmission mode is reviewed. Starting from history, modeling and the theory of MSs, uncontrollable single and multiple bands and LP-to-CP conversions, are discussed and analyzed. Moreover, detailed reconfigurable MS-based LP-to-CP converters are presented. Further, key findings on the state-of-the-arts are discussed and tabulated to give readers a quick overview. Finally, a conclusion is drawn by providing opinions on future developments in this growing research field.