Selectively Addressing Interleaved Metasurfaces via Dynamically Controlled Talbot Effect

Abstract

Optical metasurfaces (MSs), with their inherent design flexibility and subwavelength-scale control of light, offer promising solutions for miniaturizing bulky optical components. Shared-aperture MSs further enhance functionality by integrating multiple MSs through segmented or interleaved designs. However, under uniform illumination, all encoded functions are simultaneously activated, resulting in undesirable crosstalk and enhanced background. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate selectively addressed interleaved MSs (ILMSs) by making use of the dynamically controlled Talbot effect, which is realized in a configuration comprising a diffraction grating (DG) cascaded with a piezo-controlled polarization-multiplexed ILMS. By accurately controlling the DG-ILMS distance, we leverage position-dependent Talbot fringes to achieve dynamic activation of different functionalities. We believe that our approach provides a versatile integrated solution for selectively addressing multifunctional ILMSs and thereby paves the way for further development of advanced multifunctional and highly integrated optical systems.