Metasurface for characterization of the polarization state of light

The miniaturization of measurement systems currently used to characterize the polarization state of light is limited by the bulky optical components used such as polarizers and waveplates. We propose and experimentally demonstrate a simple and compact approach to measure the ellipticity and handedness of the polarized light using an ultrathin (40 nm) gradient metasurface. A completely polarized light beam is decomposed into a left circularly polarized beam and a right circularly polarized beam, which are steered in two directions by the metasurface consisting of nanorods with spatially varying orientations. By measuring the intensities of the refracted light spots, the ellipticity and handedness of various incident polarization states are characterized at a range of wavelengths and used to determine the polarization information of the incident beam. To fully characterize the polarization state of light, an extra polarizer can be used to measure the polarization azimuth angle of the incident light.