Chiroptical metasurfaces: Principles, classification, and applications

Abstract

Chiral materials, which show different optical behaviors when illuminated by left or right circularly polarized light due to broken mirror symmetry, have greatly impacted the field of optical sensing over the past decade. To improve the sensitivity of chiral sensing platforms, enhancing the chiroptical response is necessary. Metasurfaces, which are two-dimensional metamaterials consisting of periodic subwavelength artificial structures, have recently attracted significant attention because of their ability to enhance the chiroptical response by manipulating amplitude, phase, and polarization of electromagnetic fields. Here, we reviewed the fundamentals of chiroptical metasurfaces as well as categorized types of chiroptical metasurfaces by their intrinsic or extrinsic chirality. Finally, we introduced applications of chiral metasurfaces such as multiplexing metaholograms, metalenses, and sensors.