Polarization properties of optical metasurfaces of different symmetries

Abstract

Optical metasurfaces have become a new paradigm for creating flat optical devices. While being typically an order of magnitude thinner than the wavelength of light, metasurfaces allow control of the phase of propagating light waves across the full 2π range and therefore enable the realization of optical elements such as lenses, waveplates, and beam converters. Currently one of the limiting factors of functional metasurfaces is their small range of operational angles. Here we demonstrate both theoretically and experimentally that the angular range can be broadened by increasing the rotational symmetry of metasurfaces. We develop an analytical model based on the discrete dipole approximation that quantitatively describes the response of metasurfaces under oblique excitation. It shows that the effective optical symmetry is doubled for structures with odd rotational symmetry, increasing the angular range correspondingly. We apply and experimentally verify our model for metasurfaces consisting of identical meta-atoms, arranged into square lattices, hexagonal lattices, and on the vertices of a Penrose tiling. The results demonstrate the increasing angular performance with increasing rotational symmetry.