Abstract
Control of the angular momentum of light at the nanoscale is critical for many applications of subwavelength photonics, such as high-capacity optical communications devices, super-resolution imaging and optical trapping. However, conventional approaches to generate optical vortices suffer from either low efficiency or relatively large device footprints. Here we show a new strategy for vortex generation at the nanoscale that surpasses single-pixel phase control. We reveal that interaction between neighbouring nanopillars of a meta-quadrumer can tailor both the intensity and phase of the transmitted light. Consequently, a subwavelength nanopillar quadrumer is sufficient to cover a 2lπ phase change, thus efficiently converting incident light into high-purity optical vortices with different topological charges l. Benefiting from the nanoscale footprint of the meta-quadrumers, we demonstrate high-density vortex beam arrays and high-dimensional information encryption, bringing a new degree of freedom to many designs of meta-devices.
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Data availability
Source data are provided with this paper. All other data are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.
Code availability
The code used to generate the inverse design in the main text is available on request from the corresponding authors.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge W. Sha from Zhejiang University for helpful discussions on topology optimization. This research was supported by the National Key Research and Development Project of China (grant nos 2023YFB2806700, 2021YFA1400802 and 2022YFA1404700); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos 6233000076, 12334016, 12025402, 62125501, 11934012, 12261131500 and 92250302); the Shenzhen Fundamental Research Project (JCYJ20210324120402006, JCYJ20220818102218040 and GXWD20220817145518001); the Fundamental Research Funds for Central Universities (grant nos 2022FRRK030004, 2023FRFK03049 and HIT.BRET.2021009); and the Australian Research Council (grant no. DP210101292). G.Q. acknowledges financial support by the China National Postdoctoral Program for Innovative Talents (no. BX20230164) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (no. 2023M731828).
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Q.S., Y.K. and S.X. conceived the idea and supervised the research. Q.C. and G.Q. created the design. J.Y. contributed to the theoretical analysis. Yuhan Wang, Q.C., W.Y., Yujie Wang, S.X. and Z.Y. fabricated the samples. Q.C., Z.J. and G.Q. performed the experimental measurements. S.X., Y.K. and Q.S. analysed the results. All the authors discussed the contents and prepared the paper.
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Nature Nanotechnology thanks Xiangang Luo and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work
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Supplementary Figs. 1–34, Notes 1–10 and Tables 1 and 2.
Source data
Source Data Fig. 1
Source data of all phase and intensity profiles in Fig. 1. Source data of purity weights and transmissions in the simulations.
Source Data Fig. 2
Source data of purity weights and transmissions in the experiments. Source data of the line-dot plot.
Source Data Fig. 3
Source data of purity weights and transmissions in the experiments. Source data of the line-dot plot.
Source Data Fig. 4
Unprocessed images from camera and scanning electron microscopy.
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Chen, Q., Qu, G., Yin, J. et al. Highly efficient vortex generation at the nanoscale. Nat. Nanotechnol. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-024-01636-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-024-01636-y