Open Access
23 September 2024 Uniformly polarized multi-output illumination by metasurfaces performing near-complete conversion of unpolarized light
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Abstract

Many technologies, including dot projectors and lidar systems, benefit greatly from using polarized illumination. However, conventional polarizers and polarizing beam splitters have a fundamental limit of 50% efficiency when converting unpolarized light into one specific polarization. Here, we overcome this restriction and achieve near-complete conversion of unpolarized light to a spatially uniform polarization state over several output directions with our topology-optimized metasurfaces. Our results provide a path toward greatly improving the efficiency of common unpolarized light sources, such as LEDs, for a variety of applications requiring uniformly polarized illumination. Our fabricated metasurface realizes a 70% conversion efficiency, surpassing the aforementioned limit, and achieves a polarization extinction ratio exceeding 20, when characterized with laboratory measurements. We further demonstrate that arbitrary power splitting can be achieved between three or more polarized outputs, offering flexibility in target illumination.

CC BY: © The Authors. Published by SPIE and CLP under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Distribution or reproduction of this work in whole or in part requires full attribution of the original publication, including its DOI.
Neuton Li, Jihua Zhang, Shaun Lung, Dragomir N. Neshev, and Andrey A. Sukhorukov "Uniformly polarized multi-output illumination by metasurfaces performing near-complete conversion of unpolarized light," Advanced Photonics Nexus 3(6), 066002 (23 September 2024). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.APN.3.6.066002
Received: 13 June 2024; Accepted: 27 August 2024; Published: 23 September 2024
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KEYWORDS
Polarization

Light sources and illumination

Diffraction

Polarizers

Design

Dielectric polarization

Polarized light

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