Multi-dimensional wavefront sensing using volumetric meta-optics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through simulation that volumetric meta-optics can simultaneously sort light based on direction, wavelength, and polarization, enabling advanced multi-dimensional wavefront sensing for improved imaging and sensing applications.

Contribution

The work introduces a novel volumetric meta-optics design capable of multi-dimensional light sorting, advancing the ability to classify multiple light properties onto a 2D sensor.

Findings

Simulated volumetric meta-optics can sort light by direction, wavelength, and polarization.

The design enables compressed sensing applications like wavefront sensing and beam profiling.

Potential for next-generation plenoptic sensors.

Abstract

The ideal imaging system would efficiently capture information about all fundamental properties light: intensity, direction, wavelength, and polarization. Most common imaging systems only map the spatial degrees of freedom of light onto a two dimensional image sensor, with some wavelength and/or polarization discrimination added at the expense of efficiency. Thus, one of the most intriguing problems in optics is how to group and classify multiple degrees of freedom and map them on the two dimensional sensor space. Here we demonstrate through simulation that volumetric meta-optics elements consisting of a highly scattering, inverse-designed medium structured with subwavelength resolution can sort light simultaneously based on direction, wavelength and polarization. This is done by mapping these properties to a distinct combination of pixels on the image sensor for compressed sensing applications, including wavefront sensing, beam profiling, and next-generation plenoptic sensors.