Arbitrary Engineering of Spatial Caustics with 3D-printed Metasurfaces
Abstract
Caustics occur in diverse physical systems, spanning the nano-scale in electron microscopy to astronomical-scale in gravitational lensing. As envelopes of rays, optical caustics result in sharp edges or extended networks. Caustics in structured light, characterized by complex-amplitude distributions, have innovated numerous applications including particle manipulation, high-resolution imaging techniques, and optical communication. However, these applications have encountered limitations due to a major challenge in engineering caustic fields with customizable propagation trajectories and in-plane intensity profiles. Here, we introduce the compensation phase via 3D-printed metasurfaces to shape caustic fields with curved trajectories in free space. The in-plane caustic patterns can be preserved or morphed from one structure to another during propagation. Large-scale fabrication of these metasurfaces is enabled by the fast-prototyping and cost-effective two-photon polymerization lithography. Our optical elements with the ultra-thin profile and sub-millimeter extension offer a compact solution to generating caustic structured light for beam shaping, high-resolution microscopy, and light-matter-interaction studies.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2311.15542,
title = {Arbitrary Engineering of Spatial Caustics with 3D-printed Metasurfaces},
author = {Xiaoyan Zhou and Hongtao Wang and Shuxi Liu and Hao Wang and John You En Chan and Cheng-Feng Pan and Daomu Zhao and Joel K. W. Yang and Cheng-Wei Qiu},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.15542},
year = {2023}
}