Unidirectional Transmission Metasurfaces with Topological Continuity Generated from High-dimensional Design Space

With the growing demand for nanodevices, there is a concerted effort to improve the design flexibility of nanostructures, thereby expanding the capabilities of nanophotonic devices. In this work, a Laplacian-weighted binary search (LBS) algorithm is proposed to generate a unidirectional transmission metasurface from a high-dimensional design space, offering an increased degree of design freedom. The LBS algorithm incorporates topological continuity based on the Laplacian, effectively circumventing the common issue of high structural complexity in designing high-dimensional nanostructures. As a result, metasurfaces developed using the LBS algorithm in a high-dimensional design space exhibit reduced complexity, which is advantageous for experimental fabrication. An all-dielectric metasurface with unidirectional transmission, designed from the high-dimensional space using the LBS method, demonstrated the successful application of these design principles in experiments. The metasurface exhibits high optical performance on unidirectional transmission in measurements by a high-resolution angle-resolved micro-spectra system, achieving forward transmissivity above 90% (400-700 nm) and back transmissivity below 20% (400-500 nm) within the targeted wavelength range. This work provides a feasible approach for advancing high-dimensional metasurface applications, as the LBS design method takes into account topological continuity during experimental processing. Compared to traditional direct binary search (DBS) methods, the LBS method not only improves information processing efficiency but also maintains the topological continuity of structures. Beyond unidirectional transmission, the LBS-based design method has generality and flexibility to accommodate almost all physical scenarios in metasurface design, enabling a multitude of complex functions and applications.