Multi-wavelength polarisation imaging with inverse designed metasurfaces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a metasurface that enables compact, single-shot multispectral polarisation imaging at two wavelengths, suitable for lightweight applications like drones, with demonstrated experimental performance.

Contribution

The work presents a novel inverse-designed metasurface that diffractively separates spectral and polarimetric information in a single optical component for two wavelengths.

Findings

Successfully demonstrated multispectral polarimetry at 532 nm and 700 nm

The metasurface design is robust to spectral and angular bandwidths

Experimental results confirm effective single-shot multispectral polarisation imaging

Abstract

Multispectral polarisation imaging has a broad range of applications, from biological cell imaging to agricultural remote surveying. For such applications, especially involving lightweight unmanned aerial vehicles like drones, it is necessary to have compact, single-shot, efficient optical systems. We present a metasurface design that diffractively separates a scene into spectral and polarimetric measurements with a single optical component, operating for 532 nm and 700 nm in a single-shot imaging system. The polarisation imaging performance of the design is shown to be robust to both spectral and angular bandwidths, and multispectral polarimetry is demonstrated experimentally.