“Meta”-Optical Fibers: Review and Perspectives

Optical metasurfaces have emerged as a powerful approach to advanced light manipulation, providing novel optical functionality for innovative applications. Since their first integration onto the optical fiber endface a decade ago, the resulting “meta”-optical fiber platform has demonstrated immense potential in exploiting the strengths of optical fibers and overcoming their limitations, facilitating revolutionary next-generation photonic devices. This work provides the first comprehensive perspective on this rapidly growing field, organized into three main sections. First, we review the various material platforms and geometric designs that have been utilized in “meta”-fiber devices to date, comparing their advantages and limitations and detailing the nanofabrication techniques enabling their development. Next, we examine the range of novel optical functionalities that have been realized so far, including focusing, bio/optical sensing, structured light generation, and more. Finally, we explore the future prospects of this field, highlighting likely innovations in optical functionality, scalable fabrication, and applications to next-generation technologies.