Over the years, researchers have been exploring ways to artificially design chiral structures and materials, namely metamaterials and metasurfaces. They exhibit unique optical properties that can be ...used for various applications. However, metasurfaces comprise symmetry‐breaking structures that provide a more convenient solution for planar chiral optics regardless of whether they are plasmonic or dielectric. In general, plasmonic chiral metasurfaces are more suitable for applications requiring a high confinement level and substantial optical near‐field enhancement. In contrast, dielectric chiral metasurfaces are ideal for wide operating wavelength ranges and low losses. This review summarizes the recent progress on plasmonic and dielectric chiral metasurfaces. It includes the fundamental concepts, design strategies, and their implementation for applications in holographic displays, imaging and sensing, and detection. Moreover, an overview of chiral metasurfaces to generate the nonlinear effects, hosting bound states in the continuum, and the significant role of machine‐learning‐based design approaches are also discussed. Finally, some future developments are highlighted where chiral metasurfaces are expected to play a vital role.
The fundamental concepts and recent progress in plasmonic and dielectric chiral metasurfaces based on design strategy and their implementation for numerous applications in daily life are presented. Apart from that, the significant role of bound states in the continuum and nonlinear responses in chiral optics is also discussed along with some future developments.
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The jumping motion is adapted by Earth’s creatures to achieve rapid maneuverability and energy-efficient hurdling over uneven terrains or large obstacles. Herein, the continuous ...photomechanical jumping of polymer monoliths with on-demand height and angle programmability is reported. Upon exposure to actinic light, self-assembled spring-like molecular geometry of azobenzene-functionalized liquid crystalline polymers provide on-demand jumping via snap-through of non-isometric structures. The finite element method simulation quantitatively describes stress–strain responsivity of the experimental jumping. Remarkably, the maximum jumping height reaches 15.5 body length (BL) with the maximum instantaneous velocity of 880 BL s−1. We demonstrate programmable jumping height and angle by varying macroscopic geometry and light intensity profile. Finally, four continuous and directional jumping sequences are demonstrated within 5 s to overcome an obstacle.
Liquid crystal (LC) droplets have fascinating properties, such as anisotropic properties, in response to external stimuli. As LC droplet size may determine the proper application of soft composites, ...various results from numerical simulations and experimental observations of LC droplets are reported. Here, detailed topological responses of individual bipolar droplets to electric fields, are shown. The integration of each response influences the entire electro‐optic behavior. Monodispersed LC bipolar droplets are fabricated in a polyvinyl alcohol‐dissolved aqueous solution via a membrane‐emulsification method. The planar anchoring, provided by the polyvinyl alcohol surface, and surface elasticity, guide the entire LC director configuration, associated with topological defects, in the droplets. By simply blade‐coating the solution, bipolar axes of the droplets can be randomly placed on a flat substrate. Two different subsequential stages are found when applying voltages: 1) director reorientation, which is threshold‐less and 2) topological defect movement, which exhibits a threshold‐like behavior. Various initial directions of the bipolar axes with respect to the field direction provide the transition voltage between these two stages. It is believed that this study can provide important clues to handle several fundamental issues in electro‐optics of encapsulated LCs, such as the determination of response times, threshold, and operating voltages.
The electric‐field‐dependent reorientation and topological defect movement mechanisms of monodispersed nematic liquid crystal (LC) bipolar droplets are evaluated. The bipolar droplets exhibit LC director reorientation at a relatively weak electric field but the defect‐guided bipolar axis changes with respect to the electric field direction owing to the defect movement at a strong electric field.
Wide range of color change in nanohole array structure on a metal film have been successfully demonstrated using asymmetric-lattice design of nanoholes and an electrically switching polarization ...rotator. Recently, some studies have been reported that various color states were obtained in a single unit cell structure using extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) of nanopatterned structure, which could be one of the most important solutions for achieving ultrahigh integration density in optoelectronic devices. However, because they used the interfacial refractive index or dielectric constant as controlling factors for the color tuning, they were not capable of inducing a changeable range of color with different primary color states. To overcome this limitation, in this study, an asymmetric-lattice nanohole array design was integrated with an electrically controlled polarization rotator, employing a twisted nematic (TN) liquid crystal (LC). This simple structure of nanohole arrays with a rectangular lattice enabled mixed color states as well as precisely designed two different primary colors, by modulating the polarization of the incident light. The color-tuning shift was greater than 120 nm. Since the surface plasmonic (SP) modes on both sides, a top and a bottom interface, were matched better by the TN-LC layer assembled on the rectangular-lattice nanohole metal layer, the transmittance at the resonance peak wavelength was increased by 158% compared to that of the bare nanohole structure. The nanohole-array-on-metal-film simultaneously functions as an electrode, and this advantage, coupled with the low driving voltage of the TN-LC layer, can open new possibilities in applications to various optoelectronic device concepts.
The iris is an ocular organ that actively controls the size of the pupil-aperture in response to external light, thereby regulating the amount of light reaching the retina for better visual ...acquisition. Herein, we propose a light-adaptive pupil-scalable artificial iris for addressing human iris defects with biomimetic self-regulating light control similar to human iris actuation, which is realized by a radially gradient and reversible photoswitching of photochromic dyes doped within a biocompatible hydrogel matrix. The radial photochromic switching of light transmissions was achieved by the gradient patterning of the crosslinking density of the hydrogel matrix using a near-infrared light-absorbing photomask that generated radially thermal gradience during hydrogel matrix polymerization. With the effective pupil-aperture control, the proposed artificial iris exhibited a variation in the visible-light transmittance from ∼82 % at the ultraviolet light (UV) intensity of 0.5 mW/cm2 to ∼43 % at 3.0 mW/cm2 representing the transparent and colored states, respectively. The switching times for the transitions to the colored and transparent states were 27.42 and 112.25 s, respectively, at a UV intensity of 3.0 mW/cm2, which can be faster under the hydrated state. The artificial iris demonstrated potential in biomedical applications by offering reliable light-adaptive attenuation control through human-like pupil-aperture adjustments.
We present an electrically controllable fast-switching virtual-moving microlens array (MLA) consisting of a stacked structure of two polarization-dependent microlens arrays (PDMLAs) with optical ...orthogonality, where the position of the two stacked PDMLAs is shifted by half the elemental pitch in the diagonal direction. By controlling the polarization of the incident light without the physical movement of the molecules comprising the virtual-moving MLA, the periodic sampling position of the MLA can be switched fast using a polarization-switching layer based on a fast-switching liquid crystal cell. Using the fast-switching virtual-moving MLA, the spatial-resolution-enhanced light-field (LF) imaging system was demonstrated without a decrease in the angular sampling resolution as compared to the conventional LF imaging system comprising a passive MLA; two sets of elemental image arrays were captured quickly owing to the short switching time of the virtual-moving MLA of 450 μs. From the two captured sets of the elemental array image, four-times resolution-enhanced reconstruction images of the directional-view and depth-slice images could be obtained.
The prompt visual response is considered to be a highly intuitive tenet among sensors. Therefore, plasmomechanical strain sensors, which exhibit dynamic structural color changes, have recently been ...developed by using mechanical stimulus-based elastomeric substrates for wearable sensors. However, the reported plasmomechanical strain sensors either lack directional sensitivity or require complex signal processing and device design strategies to ensure anisotropic optical responses. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports on utilizing anisotropic mechanical substrates to obtain directional optical responses. Herein, we propose an anisotropic plasmomechanical sensor to distinguish between the applied force direction and the force magnitude. We employ a simple strain-engineered topological elastomer to mechanically transform closely packed metallic nanoparticles (NPs) into anisotropic directional rearrangements depending on the applied force direction. The proposed structure consists of a heterogeneous-modulus elastomer that exhibits a highly direction-dependent Poisson effect owing to the periodically line-patterned local strain redistribution occurring due to the same magnitude of applied external force. Consequently, the reorientation of the self-assembled gold (Au)-NP array manifests dual anisotropy, i.e., force- and polarization-direction-dependent plasmonic coupling. The cost-effectiveness and simple design of our proposed heterogeneous-modulus platform pave the way for numerous optical applications based on dynamic transformation and topological inhomogeneities.
The video recording-capable compact incoherent digital holographic camera system is proposed. The system consists of the linear polarizer, convex lens, geometric phase lens, and the polarized image ...sensor. The Fresnel hologram is recorded by this simple configuration in real time. The system parameters are analyzed and evaluated to record a better-quality hologram in a compact form-factor. The real-time holographic recording and its digitally reconstructed video playback are demonstrated with the proposed system.
We demonstrate the first-ever surface modification of green CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) using bromide anions (Br
) in cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). The Br
ions reduced the interparticle ...spacing between the QDs and induced an effective charge balance in QD light-emitting devices (QLEDs). The fabricated QLEDs exhibited efficient charge injection because of the reduced emission quenching effect and their enhanced thin film morphology. As a result, they exhibited a maximum luminance of 71,000 cd/m
and an external current efficiency of 6.4 cd/A, both significantly better than those of their counterparts with oleic acid surface ligands. In addition, the lifetime of the Br- treated QD based QLEDs is significantly improved due to ionic passivation at the QDs surface.
A geometric phase (GP) integral floating display can provide multifocal three-dimensional (3D) augmented reality (AR) images with enhanced depth expression by switching the focal modes of the GP lens ...via polarization control. However, using temporal multiplexing to switch between the focal modes of GP optics causes flickering as each 3D AR image is fully presented in different frames and their temporal luminance profile becomes easily recognizable, particularly as the number of available focal modes increases. Here, we propose a novel integral floating technique to generate pixelated interwoven 3D AR images; a half of each image is spatially mixed with another and presented in both focal modes simultaneously to resolve the flickering issue. The principle was verified via experimental demonstration and optically measured data.
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