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A review of dielectric optical metasurfaces for spatial differentiation and edge detection

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Abstract

Dielectric metasurfaces-based planar optical spatial differentiator and edge detection have recently been proposed to play an important role in the parallel and fast image processing technology. With the development of dielectric metasurfaces of different geometries and resonance mechanisms, diverse on-chip spatial differentiators have been proposed by tailoring the dispersion characteristics of subwavelength structures. This review focuses on the basic principles and characteristic parameters of dielectric metasurfaces as first- and second-order spatial differentiators realized via the Green’s function approach. The spatial bandwidth and polarization dependence are emphasized as key properties by comparing the optical transfer functions of metasurfaces for different incident wavevectors and polarizations. To present the operational capabilities of a two-dimensional spatial differentiator in image information acquisition, edge detection is described to illustrate the practicability of the device. As an application example, experimental demonstrations of edge detection for different biological cells and a flower mold are discussed, in which a spatial differentiator and objective lens or camera are integrated in three optical pathway configurations. The realization of spatial differentiators and edge detection with dielectric metasurfaces provides new opportunities for ultrafast information identification in biological imaging and machine vision.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Key R&D Program of China (No. 2019YFB1803904), in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61805104, 11704156, 61935013, 61875076, and 61865014), in part by the Open Project of Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, China (No. 2018WNLOKF015).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronic Engineering, College of Information Science and Technology, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Lei Wan, Danping Pan, Tianhua Feng & Weiping Liu

  2. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Lei Wan

  3. JNU-IREE RAS Joint Laboratory of Information Techniques and Fractal Signal Processing, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Lei Wan, Tianhua Feng & Alexander A. Potapov

  4. Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information and Sensing Technologies of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, Jinan University, Guangzhou, 510632, China

    Lei Wan & Weiping Liu

  5. Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 125009, Russia

    Alexander A. Potapov

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  1. Lei Wan
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  2. Danping Pan
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  3. Tianhua Feng
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Correspondence to Lei Wan or Tianhua Feng.

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Lei Wan is an Associate Research Fellow in College of Information Science and Technology at Jinan University, China. He received the Ph.D. degree in microelectronics from South China Normal University, China in 2017. From 2015 to 2017, he was a visiting Ph.D. student with Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, USA. His research interests include nanoimprinting, nanophotonic devices, and acousto-optic interaction devices.

Danping Pan received the B.Eng. degree from Huaqiao University, China in 2018. She is currently working toward the M.S. degree with College of Information Science and Technology, Jinan University, China. Her research interests are design and analysis of metasurfaces-based optical spatial differentiators.

Tianhua Feng is an Associate Research Fellow in College of Information Science and Technology at Jinan University, China. He obtained the Ph.D. degree from City University of Hong Kong, China, in 2013. His research interest is nanophotonic devices based on artificial micro-structures, including metamaterials, metasurfaces and plasmonic/dielectric nanoparticles.

Weiping Liu is a Professor of Department of Electronic Engineering at Jinan University, China. He has been the member of IEEE and SPIE. He received the Ph.D. degree from South China Normal University, China in 2000 and undertook postdoctor research in University of Science and Technology of China during the period of 2001–2003. His research interests include optical-wireless communications and the optical fiber sensor. He has published more than 30 papers in international conference and journals in the past five years.

Alexander A. Potapov is a professor in College of Information Science and Technology at Jinan University, China. He is also a chief researcher at Kotel’nikov Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics in Russia. He obtained the Ph.D. degree from Moscow State University, Russia in 1995. His research interest is fractal processing of signals in radio engineering.

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Wan, L., Pan, D., Feng, T. et al. A review of dielectric optical metasurfaces for spatial differentiation and edge detection. Front. Optoelectron. 14, 187–200 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12200-021-1124-5

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