Metasurface Holograms for Holographic Imaging

TLDR

Optical holography records amplitude and phase of scattered light, but conventional bulky holograms suffer low resolution and high‑order diffraction, while ultrathin metasurfaces offer precise amplitude, phase, and polarization control for high‑resolution holographic imaging. This review surveys recent advances in metasurface holograms, covering design principles, functional applications, and future research directions. The authors synthesize and analyze diverse metasurface hologram designs and their applications, drawing on recent literature to illustrate design strategies and performance.

Abstract

Abstract As a revolutionary three‐dimensional (3D) optical imaging technique, optical holography has attracted wide attention for its capability of recording both the amplitude and phase information of light scattered from objects. Holograms are designed to transform an incident wave into a desired arbitrary wavefront in the far field, which requires ultimate complex phase control in each hologram pixel. Conventional holograms shape the wavefront via the phase accumulation effect during the wave propagation through bulky optical elements, suffering issues of low‐resolution imaging and high‐order diffraction. Recently, metasurfaces, 2D metamaterials with ultrathin thickness, have emerged as an important platform to reproduce computer‐generated holograms due to their advantages in manipulating light with well‐controlled amplitude, phase, and polarization. In this article, the latest research progress in various types of metasurface holograms is reviewed from their design principles to versatile functional applications. At the end, more potential applications of metasurface holograms are discussed and some future research directions are also provided.