Abstract

In this Letter, we propose a multifunctional imaging system enabled by a single geometric-phase-based liquid crystal (LC) element, which integrates chiral polarization and edge enhancement imaging. The element is located at the frequency domain plane in a 4F imaging system, and the phase profile of the element consists of a fork grating in the x direction and a grating in the y direction, which provide edge enhancement and chiral polarization imaging capabilities. Benefiting from the tunable property of the LC, the system can be switched from a polarization and edge imaging mode to the normal conventional imaging mode which is capable of conveniently acquiring the needed image information. Experiments demonstrate that the system can easily achieve multifunctional and switchable imaging, which agrees well with our design, and our LC element can work in the broadband spectrum because of the geometric phase modulation. The multifunctional strategy used here can effectively avoid the need to increase the size of the original microscopic system and the need for additional mechanical rotation of components. We believe that the proposed system with the additional advantages of electric control and tunability can find applications in biological imaging, medical detection, and optical computing.

© 2023 Optica Publishing Group

Polarization-multiplexed metasurface enabled tri-functional imaging

Suyang Ge, Xingyi Li, Zilei Liu, Jiaqi Zhao, Wanjun Wang, Siqi Li, and Wenfu Zhang
Opt. Lett. 48(21) 5683-5686 (2023)

Terahertz polarization and chirality modulation induced by asymmetry inversion combining chiral metasurface and liquid crystal anisotropy

Xinhao Jiang, Yunyun Ji, Fei Fan, Huijun Zhao, Songlin Jiang, Jierong Cheng, Maoqi Wu, John H. Xin, and Shengjiang Chang
Opt. Lett. 48(7) 1682-1685 (2023)

Single-image-source binocular waveguide display based on polarization volume gratings and lenses

Jiacheng Weng, Haifeng Li, Rengmao Wu, and Xu Liu
Opt. Lett. 48(8) 2050-2053 (2023)

Switchable imaging between edge-enhanced and bright-field based on a phase-change metasurface

Hui Yang, Zhenwei Xie, Hairong He, Qiang Zhang, Jiaohao Li, Yilin Zhang, and Xiaocong Yuan
Opt. Lett. 46(15) 3741-3744 (2021)

Geometric-phase-based axicon lens for computational achromatic imaging

Jiaqi Ren, Yingjie Zhou, Zhenglong Shao, Chen Zhu, Fan Fan, and Dongliang Tang
Opt. Lett. 48(14) 3737-3740 (2023)