Broadband single-shot full-Stokes polarization detection enabled by metasurface vector holography and a neural...

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Metasurface Technology
• Holography

Background:

• Polarimetry is crucial for optical sensing, imaging, and communication.
• Current metasurface-based polarimeters struggle with accuracy, bandwidth, and operational complexity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a generic polarimetric scheme using metasurface vector holography.
• To achieve highly accurate, broadband, robust, and single-shot full-Stokes detection of arbitrary polarizations.

Main Methods:

• Encoding polarization information into vector holographic image intensity.
• Utilizing a trained neural network to decode polarization from images.
• Demonstrating the scheme's performance across the entire Poincaré sphere.

Main Results:

• Accurate polarization detection over a broad wavelength range (630-1200 nm).
• Low average reconstruction errors for azimuthal (0.58°) and ellipticity (0.67°) angles at 635 nm.
• Immunity to metasurface fabrication errors due to holographic encoding and neural network decoding.

Conclusions:

• The proposed scheme offers high detection accuracy, wide operating bandwidth, and robustness.
• It enables compact full-Stokes polarimetry with direct readout from single measurements.
• Potential applications include miniaturized optical systems, real-time sensing, and polarization imaging.