Flexible Full-Stokes Polarization Engineering by Disorder-Scrambled Metasurfaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a disordered metasurface capable of flexible and independent control of all polarization parameters of light, including the state and degree of polarization, with high accuracy and potential applications in quantum optics and polarization imaging.

Contribution

It presents a novel disordered metasurface design that independently manipulates all Stokes parameters, enabling flexible polarization control not achieved by previous metasurface approaches.

Findings

Achieves independent control of all Stokes parameters.

Maintains high control accuracy with less than 3° error.

Demonstrates potential for advanced polarization manipulation applications.

Abstract

Abstract: The ability to arbitrarily and flexibly control the polarization of light, including both the state of polarization (SoP) and the degree of polarization (DoP), is highly important for quantum optics, polarization imaging, and coherent optical communications. Although metasurfaces have shown promise in polarization control, the few studies focusing on the DoP often lack flexibility in manipulation. Here, we propose a novel approach using a disordered metasurface to flexibly convert natural light into partially polarized light, enabling independent and flexible control over all Stokes parameters. The metasurface is composed of two types of meta-atoms, uniformly distributed with specific quantity ratios, decoupling the design parameters in the process of polarization control, and allowing a one-to-one correspondence between metasurface and polarization spaces. The azimuthal and elevation angles of the SoP on the Poincar\'e sphere are independently controlled by the meta-atom rotation and size, while the DoP is governed by the quantity ratio. A developed algorithm determines the disordered metasurface arrangement, with theoretical calculations showing an average error of less than 3{\deg} for both the azimuthal and elevation angles and a control accuracy of \pm 0.05 for the DoP.