Si-Based Polarizer and 1-Bit Phase-Controlled Non-Polarizing Beam Splitter-Based Integrated Metasurface for Extended Shortwave Infrared

Abstract

Metasurfaces, composed of micro-nano-structured planar materials, offer highly tunable control over incident light and find significant applications in imaging, navigation, and sensing. However, highly efficient polarization devices are scarce for the extended shortwave infrared (ESWIR) range (1.7~2.5 μm). This paper proposes and demonstrates a highly efficient all-dielectric diatomic metasurface composed of single-crystalline Si nanocylinders and nanocubes on SiO2. This metasurface can serve as a nanoscale linear polarizer for generating polarization-angle-controllable linearly polarized light. At the wavelength of 2172 nm, the maximum transmission efficiency, extinction ratio, and linear polarization degree can reach 93.43%, 45.06 dB, and 0.9973, respectively. Moreover, a nonpolarizing beam splitter (NPBS) was designed and deduced theoretically based on this polarizer, which can achieve a splitting angle of ±13.18° and a phase difference of π. This beam splitter can be equivalently represented as an integration of a linear polarizer with controllable polarization angles and an NPBS with one-bit phase modulation. It is envisaged that through further design optimization, the phase tuning range of the metasurface can be expanded, allowing for the extension of the operational wavelength into the mid-wave infrared range, and the splitting angle is adjustable. Moreover, it can be utilized for integrated polarization detectors and be a potential application for optical digital encoding metasurfaces.