Conventional optical elements realize light propagation control or other functions by engineering the refractive index, thickness, and surface shape of a medium, making them inevitably bulky and heavyweight and thus unfavorable in constructing ultra-compact and highly-integrated optical systems. Metasurface refers to an array of periodic or nonperiodic subwavelength-thick nanostructures that can be elaborately devised to tailor the light phase, amplitude, and polarization through an interface. These salient features make metasurface a promising candidate to replace conventional optical elements such as prism, lens, waveplate, hologram, color filter, etc, opening a new avenue to flat-optics and providing an opportunity to address the aforementioned issues. In addition to substituting conventional optical components, metasurfaces also hold great promise to integrate multiple distinct functions on a single platform, dubbed as multifunctional metasurface, which is a hot spot in the current research area of nanophotonics.
The strategy for designing multifunctional metasurface is diverse, either spatially interleaving/segmenting different nanostructures designed for specific functional purposes, or multiplexing/embedding distinct functions in the polarization, wavelength, or incidence angle of light. However, the majority of existing multifunctional metasurfaces are mainly functionally valid in one operation space, i.e., the transmission or reflection space. Realizing arbitrary manipulation of full-space electromagnetic wave control could be of great significance in various fields ranging from optical communication to LiDAR. Toward the goal, a burgeoning amount of plasmonic metasurfaces and very few dielectric metasurfaces have been recently developed and demonstrated for versatile functions including directional or full-space beam shaping, vortex beam generation, holography, and data encryption. However, the research direction is still in its infancy and numerous intriguing applications need to be explored.
This Research Topic aims to highlight the latest progress in metasurfaces for full-space electromagnetic wave manipulations. We welcome the submissions of reviews, original research articles, and perspectives on the theme including, but not limited to:
- Multifunctional full-space metasurface, transmission-reflection integrated metasurface
- Directional metasurface; Janus metasurface, non-reciprocal metasurface, asymmetric metasurface
- Multichannel metasurface for directional coloring, information display, and data encryption
- Multidimensional electromagnetic wave control, polarization routing and sorting
- Multilayer plasmonic/dielectric metasurfaces, diatomic metasurface
- Reconfigurable or active metasurface
Keywords:
Trans-reflective metasurface, Full-space metasurface, Directional metasurface, Asymmetric metasurface, Multifunctional metasurface, Reconfigurable metasurface, Multidimensional electromagnetic wave control
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
Conventional optical elements realize light propagation control or other functions by engineering the refractive index, thickness, and surface shape of a medium, making them inevitably bulky and heavyweight and thus unfavorable in constructing ultra-compact and highly-integrated optical systems. Metasurface refers to an array of periodic or nonperiodic subwavelength-thick nanostructures that can be elaborately devised to tailor the light phase, amplitude, and polarization through an interface. These salient features make metasurface a promising candidate to replace conventional optical elements such as prism, lens, waveplate, hologram, color filter, etc, opening a new avenue to flat-optics and providing an opportunity to address the aforementioned issues. In addition to substituting conventional optical components, metasurfaces also hold great promise to integrate multiple distinct functions on a single platform, dubbed as multifunctional metasurface, which is a hot spot in the current research area of nanophotonics.
The strategy for designing multifunctional metasurface is diverse, either spatially interleaving/segmenting different nanostructures designed for specific functional purposes, or multiplexing/embedding distinct functions in the polarization, wavelength, or incidence angle of light. However, the majority of existing multifunctional metasurfaces are mainly functionally valid in one operation space, i.e., the transmission or reflection space. Realizing arbitrary manipulation of full-space electromagnetic wave control could be of great significance in various fields ranging from optical communication to LiDAR. Toward the goal, a burgeoning amount of plasmonic metasurfaces and very few dielectric metasurfaces have been recently developed and demonstrated for versatile functions including directional or full-space beam shaping, vortex beam generation, holography, and data encryption. However, the research direction is still in its infancy and numerous intriguing applications need to be explored.
This Research Topic aims to highlight the latest progress in metasurfaces for full-space electromagnetic wave manipulations. We welcome the submissions of reviews, original research articles, and perspectives on the theme including, but not limited to:
- Multifunctional full-space metasurface, transmission-reflection integrated metasurface
- Directional metasurface; Janus metasurface, non-reciprocal metasurface, asymmetric metasurface
- Multichannel metasurface for directional coloring, information display, and data encryption
- Multidimensional electromagnetic wave control, polarization routing and sorting
- Multilayer plasmonic/dielectric metasurfaces, diatomic metasurface
- Reconfigurable or active metasurface
Keywords:
Trans-reflective metasurface, Full-space metasurface, Directional metasurface, Asymmetric metasurface, Multifunctional metasurface, Reconfigurable metasurface, Multidimensional electromagnetic wave control
Important Note:
All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.