Generation of Switchable Singular Beams with Dynamic Metasurfaces

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to generate switchable singular optical beams at visible frequencies using ultrathin, dynamic metasurfaces with magnesium nanorods, enabling reconfigurable light manipulation for advanced optical applications.

Contribution

The work introduces a practical scheme for switchable singular beams with sub-wavelength resolution using magnesium-based dynamic metasurfaces, a novel approach in optical beam control.

Findings

Demonstrated switchable vector and vortex beams via hydrogenation/dehydrogenation.

Achieved dynamic holographic pattern switching inspired by orbital angular momentum.

Enabled high-security optical elements for anti-counterfeiting.

Abstract

Singular beams have attracted great attention due to their optical properties and broad applications from light manipulation to optical communications. However, there has been a lack of practical schemes with which to achieve switchable singular beams with sub-wavelength resolution using ultrathin and flat optical devices. In this work, we demonstrate the generation of switchable vector and vortex beams utilizing dynamic metasurfaces at visible frequencies. The dynamic functionality of the metasurface pixels is enabled by the utilization of magnesium nanorods, which possess plasmonic reconfigurability upon hydrogenation and dehydrogenation. We show that switchable vector beams of different polarization states and switchable vortex beams of different topological charges can be implemented through simple hydrogenation and dehydrogenation of the same metasurfaces. Furthermore, we demonstrate a two-cascade metasurface scheme for holographic pattern switching, taking inspiration from orbital angular momentum-shift keying. Our work provides an additional degree of freedom to develop high-security optical elements for anti-counterfeiting applications.