Continuous-Spectrum–Polarization Recombinant Optical Encryption with a Dielectric Metasurface

The Jones matrix, with eight degrees of freedom (DoFs), provides a general mathematical framework for the multifunctional design of metasurfaces. Theoretically, the maximum eight DoFs can be further extended in the spectrum dimension to endow unique encryption capabilities. However, the topology and intrinsic spectral responses of meta-atoms constrains the continuous engineering of polarization evolution over wavelength dimension. In this work, a forward evolution strategy to quickly establish the mapping relationships between the solutions of the dispersion Jones matrix and the spectral responses of meta-atoms is reported. Based on the eigenvector transformation method, arbitrary conjugate polarization channels over the continuous-spectrum dimension are successfully reconstructed. As a proof-of-concept, a silicon metadevice is demonstrated for optical information encryption transmission. Remarkably, the arbitrary combination forms of polarization and wavelength dimension increase the information capacity (2¹⁰), and the measured polarization contrasts of the conjugate polarization conversion are >94% in the entire wavelength range (3–4 µm). It is believed that the proposed approach will benefit secure optical and quantum information technologies.