Germanium Metasurface for MWIR Polarization-Sensitive Stokes Thermal Imaging at 4-micron wavelength

TL;DR

This paper presents a Germanium metasurface designed for polarization-sensitive thermal imaging at 4 microns, enabling simultaneous detection and analysis of polarization states with high contrast and efficiency in a compact form.

Contribution

The work introduces a novel high-contrast Germanium metasurface with asymmetric nanoantennas for polarization detection at MWIR wavelengths, optimized for fabrication and performance.

Findings

Achieved 50% transmission efficiency for linear polarization separation.

Demonstrated 40-60% transmission contrast for polarization states.

Enabled Stokes vector reconstruction and polarization analysis.

Abstract

The mid-wave (MWIR) spectral range can provide a larger bandwidth for optical sensing and communication when the near-infrared band gets congested. As optical sensing becomes a robust technique for digital imaging and object recognition, this range of thermal imaging needs to convey more information, which can be unraveled from polarization-sensitive detection by integrating the metasurface of the subwavelength scale structured interface to control light-matter interaction. To enforce metasurface-enable simultaneous detection and parallel analysis of polarization states in a compact footprint for 4-micron wavelength, we design a high-contrast Germanium metasurface with an axially asymmetric triangular nanoantenna of the thickness of 0.525 times the wavelength. First, we optimized linear polarization separation of a 52-degree angle with 50% transmission efficiency, holding the meta-element aspect ratio from the 3.5-1.67 range. The transmission modulation in terms of periodicity and lattice resonance for the phase gradient high contrast dielectric grating in correlation with scattering cross-section for both 1D and 2D cases has been discussed, which enables the reduction of the aspect ratio to meet the nanofabrication challenge. Further, by employing the geometric phase, we get 40% and 60% transmission contrast for linear and circular polarization states, respectively, and reconstruct the Stokes vectors and output polarization states. Without spatial multiplexing, this single metasurface unit cell can perform well for the division of focal plane Stoke thermal imaging with an almost 5-degree tilted incidence, excellent refractive index, and height tolerance.