Work

Diffraction order‐engineered polarization‐dependent silicon nano‐antennas metagrating for compact subtissue Mueller microscopy

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: A polarization-dependent silicon nano-antennas metagrating (PSNM) is proposed for parallel polarization transformation by engineering diffraction orders, upon which a compact Mueller microscopy system is implemented for subtissue-level polarization extraction. The polarization-dependent metagrating is designed using matrix Fourier optics and nonlinear optimization with four diffraction orders described by waveplate-like Jones matrices, which is encoded by nano-antennas combining geometric and propagation phases. The measured phase delay and orientation of each diffraction order of the metagrating deviate by less than 6.7 % from the design values, and the overall diffraction efficiency reaches 70.89 % with a coefficient of variation of 0.021. A transmissive PSNM Mueller microscopy system is developed by directly embedding the metagrating into an infinity-corrected microscopic optical path, which extracts subtissue-level polarization distributions of biological sections over a 152 μm × 152 μm field of view with reduced measurement redundancy, facilitating the differentiation and staging of pathological tissues for potential stain-free diagnostic applications.

Source: Nanophotonics

DOI: 10.1515/nanoph-2025-0405

Authors: Qingyuan Li, Jianyao Li, Gaodi Chen, Zhiguang Lin, Dongmei Lu, Xiaoxu Deng

Institutions: Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University, Fudan University, Huashan Hospital

Language: English

Topic: Metamaterials and Metasurfaces Applications

Subfield: Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials

Field: Materials Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,995

Funder: National Natural Science Foundation of China