By carefully arranging many nanoblocks to form pixels on a metasurface, researchers have demonstrated that they can manipulate incoming visible light in just the right way to create a color "meta-hologram." The new method of creating holograms has an order of magnitude higher reconstruction efficiency than similar color meta-holograms, and has applications for various types of 3D color holographic displays and achromatic planar lenses.
The researchers, Bo Wang et al., from Peking University and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, both in China, have published a paper on the new type of hologram in a recent issue of Nano Letters. The pixels on the new metasurface consist of three types of silicon nanoblocks whose precise dimensions correspond to the wavelengths of three different colors: red, green, and blue. To enhance the efficiency for the blue light, two identical nanoblocks corresponding to the blue light are arranged in each pixel, along with one nanoblock for red light and one for green light.
The researchers explain that each pixel can be thought of as a "meta-molecule" because it is the basic repeating, subwavelength unit of the larger metasurface that constitutes the entire hologram. The meta-molecules enable the metasurface to control light in ways that are not possible without modern nanoscale design.
When red,
green, and blue lasers illuminate the hologram, each nanoblock manipulates the
phase of its corresponding color. The
researchers explain that a key achievement of the study was to minimize the
interactions between nanoblocks so that the nanoblocks function almost
independently of each other. Then by orienting the nanoblocks in different
ways, the researchers could change the light's phase manipulation, resulting in
different holographic images.
"Our work provides an approach
for realizing the almost independent manipulation of phase for different
visible wavelengths in subwavelength resolution and in transmission mode due to
the absence of interactions between nanoblocks within one meta-molecule, which
allows for particular functionalities," coauthor Yan Li, at Peking
University and Shanxi University, told Phys.org.
The researchers demonstrated that
the nanoblock approach can be used to create two different types of holograms.
In an achromatic hologram, the entire reconstructed image is in one color. By
balancing the relative input of the three colors, a wide spectrum of colors can
be achieved. In the second type of hologram, called a highly dispersive
hologram, different parts of the reconstructed image have different colors—for
example, a red flower, green stem, and blue container.
The new color hologram has a variety of potential
applications where spectral wavefront manipulation is required, such as 3D
color holograms, achromatic lenses, and anti-conterfeiting planar optical
devices. The researchers plan to pursue these applications in future work.
"Based on this idea and
approach, novel real planar optical devices may be fabricated to realize many
novel or extra functions in the future," Li said.
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