There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

Statistics for Spatial Data.

Metamaterials are artificially fabricated materials that allow for the control of light and acoustic waves in a manner that is not possible in nature. This Review covers the recent developments in the study of so-called metasurfaces, which offer the possibility of controlling light with ultrathin, planar optical components. Conventional optical components such as lenses, waveplates and holograms rely on light propagation over distances much larger than the wavelength to shape wavefronts. In this way substantial changes of the amplitude, phase or polarization of light waves are gradually accumulated along the optical path. This Review focuses on recent developments on flat, ultrathin optical components dubbed 'metasurfaces' that produce abrupt changes over the scale of the free-space wavelength in the phase, amplitude and/or polarization of a light beam. Metasurfaces are generally created by assembling arrays of miniature, anisotropic light scatterers (that is, resonators such as optical antennas). The spacing between antennas and their dimensions are much smaller than the wavelength. As a result the metasurfaces, on account of Huygens principle, are able to mould optical wavefronts into arbitrary shapes with subwavelength resolution by introducing spatial variations in the optical response of the light scatterers. Such gradient metasurfaces go beyond the well-established technology of frequency selective surfaces made of periodic structures and are extending to new spectral regions the functionalities of conventional microwave and millimetre-wave transmit-arrays and reflect-arrays. Metasurfaces can also be created by using ultrathin films of materials with large optical losses. By using the controllable abrupt phase shifts associated with reflection or transmission of light waves at the interface between lossy materials, such metasurfaces operate like optically thin cavities that strongly modify the light spectrum. Technology opportunities in various spectral regions and their potential advantages in replacing existing optical components are discussed.

Flat Optics With Designer Metasurfaces

Using a metasurface comprising an array of nanorods with different orientations and a backreflector, a hologram image can be obtained in the visible and near-infrared with limited loss of light intensity.

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Metasurface holograms reaching 80% efficiency

Switches, and Actuators Masahiro Irie,*,† Tuyoshi Fukaminato,‡ Kenji Matsuda, and Seiya Kobatake †Research Center for Smart Molecules, Rikkyo University, Nishi-Ikebukuro 3-34-1, Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-8501, Japan ‡Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido University, N20, W10, Kita-ku, Sapporo 001-0020, Japan Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Katsura, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka City University, Sugimoto 3-3-138, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka 558-8585, Japan

Photochromism of Diarylethene Molecules and Crystals: Memories, Switches, and Actuators

A new diarylethene doped with poly(methyl methacrylate) film is developed and its characteristics of volume holographic recording are investigated. The maximum diffraction efficiency of the 10microm thick film is 1.2%, and the rewritable hologram recording exhibits its high resolution, fatigue resistance, negligible shrinkage, and long lifetime, which are critical to apply this material to high-density rewritable holographic data storage.

Photochromic diarylethene for rewritable holographic data storage

A multilayered metallic M-shaped nano-grating is proposed to enhance the internal quantum efficiency, light extraction efficiency and surface-plasmon (SP) extraction efficiency of the gallium nitride-based light emitting diodes. This structure is fabricated by the low-cost nano-imprint lithography. The suitable grating based on quasi-symmetrical-waveguide structure has a high transmission in the visible region. The properties of SP mode and the Purcell effect in this type of LED is investigated. The experimental results demonstrate that its peak photoluminescence intensity of the proposed LED is over 10 times greater than that from a naked GaN-LED without any nanostructure.

Surface-plasmon-enhanced GaN-LED based on a multilayered M-shaped nano-grating

Experimental details are given of a novel, promising kind of double frequency laser—with power output of 0.8–1.4 mW, large frequency difference from 37 MHz to a longitudinal mode interval, and frequency stability of 10−5, and its potential uses are discussed.

Birefringent tuning double frequency He-Ne laser.

A simple and effective optical roll-angle sensor based on a magnetic garnet single crystal is demonstrated The measurement is based on the principle that, when linearly polarized light whose polarization varies alternately in two orthogonal directions passes through a polarization analyzer, the transmitted optical intensity varies The output voltage from an optical detector located after the analyzer can be used to determine the roll angle The chief advantages of the sensor are that it is compact, flexible, low cost, and power effective and provides a fast response Most importantly, the sensor is insensitive to various fluctuations such as optical intensity, photodiode responsivity, and temperature and to vibrations This performance is most advantageous in long-distance or long-term measurements Experimental results have shown that the angular resolution is 001 degree in a +/-30 degree range

Compact optical roll-angle sensor with large measurement range and high sensitivity.

We propose an efficient algorithm using layered holographic stereogram for three-dimensional (3D) computer-generated holograms. The hologram is spatially partitioned into multiple holographic elements (hogels) to provide the occlusion effect and motion parallax by use of multiple viewpoint rendering. Each hogel is calculated with inverse Fresnel diffraction by slicing the viewing frustum according to the depth image. The sliced layers can provide accurate depth cues for reconstruction since the geometric information of the 3D scene is faithfully matched. The algorithm is compatible with computer graphics rendering techniques and robust for holograms with different parameters. When the hogel size equals 1 mm, the signal-to-noise ratio of the diffraction calculation is above 39 dB with a propagation distance longer than 10 mm. Numerical simulations and optical experiments have demonstrated that the proposed method can reconstruct quality 3D images with reduced computational load.

Guofan Jin

Papers

Photochromic diarylethene for rewritable holographic data storage

Surface-plasmon-enhanced GaN-LED based on a multilayered M-shaped nano-grating

Birefringent tuning double frequency He-Ne laser.

Compact optical roll-angle sensor with large measurement range and high sensitivity.

Layered holographic stereogram based on inverse Fresnel diffraction