Optical Metasurfaces for Dynamic Wavefront Control in the Visible Range

The ability to dynamically manipulate propagating light is critically important in various applications, from optical communications, precision manufacturing or adaptive optics, to metrology and displays. While Spatial Light Modulator technologies offering dynamic control of wavefronts have been around for a long time, they have faced severe difficulties in increasing the spatial precision at which this can be done. As an alternative platform to common liquid crystals or micromirror-based devices, optical metasurfaces have opened a possible pathway to achieve dynamic wavefront control with sub-wavelength spatial resolution by endowing resonant nanoantennas with different tuning mechanisms. In this talk, we will present some of our recent efforts in this regard, particularly in two of the mechanisms that we find most promising for visible light manipulation, namely interfacing nanoantennas with liquid crystals and using low-loss phase-change materials with and without memory.