Electric-Driven Meta-Optic Dynamics for Simultaneous Near-/Far-Field Multiplexing Display

Heading towards to intelligent photonic technology, meta-optics is in the revolutionary process of changing from passive to active controllable devices. Despite various emerging tuning mechanisms exploration and demonstration, they mainly focus on spectral amplitude alternation or near-field imaging switch. Most tuning schemes inevitably demand quite complicated nanofabrication to incorporate nanotextured active materials, thus limiting its applicable scenarios outside the laboratory. Hence, a practically accessible solution in real life to simultaneously realize multi-field (both near- and far-field) dynamic displays remains a critical challenge. Here, a practical electric-driven liquid-crystal-integrated metasurface (ELIM) is proposed and demonstrated toward advanced intelligent dynamic display. Through elaborately screening building block (alpha-Si nanopillar) geometry to build up a systematic architectural dictionary, conventional spatial-multiplexing is successfully achieved and the degeneracy for amplitude/phase selections is created and thus any arbitrary multi-field encryptions are allowed. By leveraging ELIM anisotropic characteristics for orthogonal polarizations, an electric-driven dynamic tuning is practically realized for the first time to enable quad-fold dynamic exhibitions, including switchable dual-nanoprinting (near-field) and simultaneous dual-holography (far-field) images with independent-encryption freedom. Overall, it is envisioned that meta-optics integrated with the liquid-crystal platform can easily find practical applications in real life for intelligent dynamic display, imaging multiplexing, information encryption/security, etc.

Automated summary

The article discusses the transition of meta-optics towards active controllable devices and introduces a practical solution, the electric-driven liquid-crystal-integrated metasurface (ELIM), for advanced dynamic display. By carefully selecting building block modules and leveraging anisotropic characteristics, the technology enables dynamic exhibitions of dual-nanoprinting and dual-holography images.