MetaSpectra+: A Compact Broadband Metasurface Camera for Snapshot Hyperspectral+ Imaging

TL;DR

MetaSpectra+ is a compact metasurface camera capable of snapshot hyperspectral imaging combined with HDR or polarization imaging over nearly the entire visible spectrum, offering high accuracy and minimal size.

Contribution

It introduces a novel metasurface-refractive assembly enabling multifunctional snapshot hyperspectral imaging across a broad spectrum, surpassing prior narrow-band devices.

Findings

Operates over nearly the entire visible spectrum (250 nm)

Achieves shortest total track length among snapshot hyperspectral imagers

Reconstructs high-quality hyperspectral datacubes with high accuracy

Abstract

We present MetaSpectra+, a compact multifunctional camera that supports two operating modes: (1) snapshot HDR + hyperspectral or (2) snapshot polarization + hyperspectral imaging. It utilizes a novel metasurface-refractive assembly that splits the incident beam into multiple channels and independently controls each channel's dispersion, exposure, and polarization. Unlike prior multifunctional metasurface imagers restricted to narrow (10-100 nm) bands, MetaSpectra+ operates over nearly the entire visible spectrum (250 nm). Relative to snapshot hyperspectral imagers, it achieves the shortest total track length and the highest reconstruction accuracy on benchmark datasets. The demonstrated prototype reconstructs high-quality hyperspectral datacubes and either an HDR image or two orthogonal polarization channels from a single snapshot.