A review of dielectric optical metasurfaces for wavefront control

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in dielectric optical metasurfaces, highlighting their mechanisms for wavefront shaping, polarization control, and applications in imaging and tunable devices, along with future challenges.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of dielectric metasurfaces for wavefront control, emphasizing recent developments and future prospects.

Findings

High-efficiency steep phase gradients achieved

Simultaneous polarization and phase control demonstrated

Applications in imaging and tunable optics explored

Abstract

During the past few years, metasurfaces have been used to demonstrate optical elements and systems with capabilities that surpass those of conventional diffractive optics. Here we review some of these recent developments with a focus on dielectric structures for shaping optical wavefronts. We discuss the mechanisms for achieving steep phase gradients with high efficiency, simultaneous polarization and phase control, controlling the chromatic dispersion, and controlling the angular response. Then we review applications in imaging, conformal optics, tunable devices, and optical systems. We conclude with an outlook on future potentials and challenges that need to be overcome.