Recently, the research group from Key Laboratory of Infrared Science and Technology (State Key Laboratory of Infrared Physics) of Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics (Chinese Academy of Sciences), has made important progress in research of continuous-spectrum–polarization manipulation through controlling the recombinant dispersion of consisting metaatoms and natural materials. It provides a possible route towards low-weight, high-performance and small-volume metadevices which are highly desired in remote sensing and quantum communications. The relevant research is published in Advanced Materials under the title "Continuous-Spectrum–Polarization Recombinant Optical Encryption with a Dielectric Metasurface".

The mid-wavelength infrared (MWIR) is an important region where the intrinsic absorption bands of most molecules and thermal radiation of room-temperature objects are located. The high transmittance and large operation bandwidth make it an indispensable transparent atmosphere window for space-to-earth communication and key distribution. This metasurface technology provides a great platform for joint manipulation of wavelength and polarization of MWIR photon at sub-wavelength scale, that shows enormous application potential in optical information encryption communication.

The research team from Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics has developed a unique continuous-spectrum–polarization recombinant MWIR metasurface device by introducing dispersion engineering into Jones matrix. Based on the eigenvector transformation method, arbitrary conjugate polarization channels over the continuous-spectrum dimension were successfully reconstructed and an information capacity of 2¹⁰ were achieved. This technology also breaks through the physical limitation of single degree of freedom encryption when facing with brute force algorithm, which provides a beneficial exploration for metasurface devices to develop from traditional reference bulk material device system to new materials and new principles.

PhD candidate Jiuxu Wang is the first author, and Professor Ghanhai Li is the corresponding author of this article. The research achievements were supported by Ministry of Science and Technology, National Natural Science Foundation of Chiha, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

This article can be found under https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202304161.

Figure (a) Schematic of optical information encryption with the continuous-spectrum–polarization recombinant metadevice. (b) Theoretical diagram of decoupling continuous conjugate polarization channels in wavelength dimension.

Contact：Prof. Guanhai Li ghli0120@mail.sitp.ac.cn