Photonic multitasking enabled with geometric phase

• Autores: Natalia M. Litchinitser
• Localización: Science, ISSN 0036-8075, Vol. 352, Nº 6290, 2016, págs. 1177-1178
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The constructive and destructive interference of waves is often exploited in optics and signal transmission. The interference pattern is a direct measure of the phase difference between two or more beams. Such a phase difference may result from the difference between the optical paths traversed by the light beams. However, phase can change for a single beam if it propagates through an “anisotropic parameter space,” a medium that curves the light; this property is called geometric or topological phase (1–4). On page 1202 of this issue, Maguid et al. (5) use metasurfaces—ultrathin, planar engineered structures (6–9)—to form shared-aperture antenna arrays that impart geometric phase to optical signals. These devices can control photonic spin and enable multiple optical functions.