High-NA optical edge detection via optimized multilayer films

There has been a significant effort to design nanophotonic structures that process images at the speed of light. A prototypical example is in edge detection, where photonic-crystal-, metasurface-, and plasmon-based designs have been proposed and in some cases experimentally demonstrated. In this work, we show that multilayer optical interference coatings can achieve visible-frequency edge detection in transmission with high numerical aperture, two-dimensional image formation, and straightforward fabrication techniques, unique among all nanophotonic approaches. We show that the conventional Laplacian-based transmission spectrum may not be ideal once the scattering physics of real designs is considered, and show that better performance can be attained with alternative spatial filter functions. Our designs, comprising alternating layers of Si and SiO2 with total thicknesses of only 1 µm, demonstrate the possibility for optimized multilayer films to achieve state-of-the-art edge detection, and, more broadly, analog optical implementations of linear operators.

Multifunctional metasurfaces enabled by simultaneous and independent control of phase and amplitude for orthogonal polarization states

Monochromatic light can be characterized by its three fundamental properties: amplitude, phase, and polarization. In this work, we propose a versatile, transmission-mode all-dielectric metasurface platform that can independently manipulate the phase and amplitude for two orthogonal states of polarization in the visible frequency range. For proof-of-concept experimental demonstration, various single-layer metasurfaces composed of subwavelength-spaced titanium-dioxide nanopillars are designed, fabricated, and characterized to exhibit the ability of polarization-switchable multidimensional light-field manipulation, including polarization-switchable grayscale nanoprinting, nonuniform cylindrical lensing, and complex-amplitude holography. We envision the metasurface platform demonstrated here to open new possibilities toward creating compact multifunctional optical devices for applications in polarization optics, information encoding, optical data storage, and security.

Manufacturing of Opals from Polymethylmethacrylate Particles in Dispersion Media with Different Viscosities

The article was prepared based on the materials of the report at the first All-Russian scientific conference with international participation "YENISEI PHOTONICS – 2020". Photonic crystals are structures that have a spatial architecture with a periodically changing complex dielectric function at scales comparable to the wavelengths of light in the visible frequency range. The purpose of this study is to obtain three-dimensional photonic crystals by self-assembly from submicron spherical monodisperse particles of polymethylmethacrylate in dispersion media with different viscosities