Valley topological photonic crystals (TPCs), which are robust against local disorders and structural defects, have attracted great research interest, from theoretical verification to technical applications. However, previous works mostly focused on the robustness of topologically protected edge states and little attention was paid to the importance of the photonic bandgaps (PBGs), which hinders the implementation of various multifrequency functional topological photonic devices. Here, by systematically studying the relationship between the degree of symmetry breaking and the working bandwidth of the edge states, we present spoof surface plasmon polariton valley TPCs with broadband edge states and engineered PBGs, where the operation frequency is easy to adjust. Furthermore, by connecting valley TPCs operating at different frequencies, a broadband multifunctional frequency-dependent topological photonic device with selectively directional light transmission is fabricated and experimentally demonstrated, achieving the functions of wavelength division multiplexing and add–drop multiplexing. We provide an effective and insightful method for building multi-frequency topological photonic devices.

Recently, deep learning has been used to establish the nonlinear and nonintuitive mapping between physical structures and electromagnetic responses of meta-atoms for higher computational efficiency. However, to obtain sufficiently accurate predictions, the conventional deep-learning-based method consumes excessive time to collect the data set, thus hindering its wide application in this interdisciplinary field. We introduce a spectral transfer-learning-based metasurface design method to achieve excellent performance on a small data set with only 1000 samples in the target waveband by utilizing open-source data from another spectral range. We demonstrate three transfer strategies and experimentally quantify their performance, among which the “frozen-none” robustly improves the prediction accuracy by ∼26 % compared to direct learning. We propose to use a complex-valued deep neural network during the training process to further improve the spectral predicting precision by ∼30 % compared to its real-valued counterparts. We design several typical teraherz metadevices by employing a hybrid inverse model consolidating this trained target network and a global optimization algorithm. The simulated results successfully validate the capability of our approach. Our work provides a universal methodology for efficient and accurate metasurface design in arbitrary wavebands, which will pave the way toward the automated and mass production of metasurfaces.

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) have exhibited extraordinary properties in photonics for enhanced light-matter interactions that enable appealing applications in nonlinear optics, biosensors, and ultrafast optical switches. The most common strategy to apply BICs in a metasurface is by breaking symmetry of resonators in the uniform array that leaks the otherwise uncoupled mode to free space and exhibits an inverse quadratic relationship between quality factor (Q) and asymmetry. Here, we propose a scheme to further reduce scattering losses and improve the robustness of symmetry-protected BICs by decreasing the radiation density with a hybrid BIC lattice. We observe a significant increase of radiative Q in the hybrid lattice compared to the uniform lattice with a factor larger than 14.6. In the hybrid BIC lattice, modes are transferred to Г point inherited from high symmetric X, Y, and M points in the Brillouin zone that reveal as multiple Fano resonances in the far field and would find applications in hyperspectral sensing. This work initiates a novel and generalized path toward reducing scattering losses and improving the robustness of BICs in terms of lattice engineering that would release the rigid requirements of fabrication accuracy and benefit applications of photonics and optoelectronic devices.

Plasmonic vortices confining orbital angular momentums to surface have aroused wide research interest in the last decade. Recent advances of near-field microscopes have enabled the study on the spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices, providing a better understanding of optical orbital angular momentums in the evanescent wave regime. However, these works only focused on the objective characterization of plasmonic vortex and have not achieved subjectively tailoring of its spatiotemporal dynamics for specific applications. Herein, it is demonstrated that the plasmonic vortices with the same topological charge can be endowed with distinct spatiotemporal dynamics by simply changing the coupler design. Based on a near-field scanning terahertz microscopy, the surface plasmon fields are directly obtained with ultrahigh spatiotemporal resolution, experimentally exhibiting the generation and evolution divergences during the whole lifetime of plasmonic vortices. The proposed strategy is straightforward and universal, which can be readily applied into visible or infrared frequencies, facilitating the development of plasmonic vortex related researches and applications.

Surface plasmons (SPs) are electromagnetic surface waves that propagate at the interface between a conductor and a dielectric. Due to their unique ability to concentrate light on two-dimensional platforms and produce very high local-field intensity, SPs have rapidly fueled a variety of fundamental advances and practical applications. In parallel, the development of metamaterials and metasurfaces has rapidly revolutionized the design concepts of traditional optical devices, fostering the exciting field of meta-optics. This review focuses on recent progress of meta-optics inspired SP devices, which are implemented by the careful design of subwavelength structures and the arrangement of their spatial distributions. Devices of general interest, including coupling devices, on-chip tailoring devices, and decoupling devices, as well as nascent SP applications empowered by sophisticated usage of meta-optics, are introduced and discussed.

Perfect optical vortices (POVs), characterized as a ring radius independent of topological charge (TC), possess extensive application in particle manipulation and optical communication. At present, the complex and bulky optical device for generating POVs has been miniaturized by leveraging the metasurface, and either spin-dependent or spin-independent POV conversions have been further accomplished. Nevertheless, it is still challenging to generate superposed POVs for incidences with orthogonal circular polarization. Here, a spin-multiplexed all-dielectric metasurface method for generating superposed POVs in the terahertz frequency range is proposed and demonstrated. By using the multiple meta-atom comprised structure as the basic unit, the complex amplitude of two superposed POVs is modulated, decoupled, and subsequently encoded to left- and right-handed circular polarization incidences. Furthermore, two kinds of metasurfaces are fabricated and characterized to validate this controlling method. It is demonstrated that the measured intensity and phase distributions match well with the calculation of the Rayleigh–Sommerfeld diffraction integral, and the radius of superposed POVs is independent of TCs. This work provides promising opportunities for developing ultracompact terahertz functional devices applied to complex structured light generation and terahertz communication, and exploring sophisticated spin angular momentum and orbital angular momentum interactions like the photonic spin-Hall effect.

Recent moiré configurations provide a new platform for tunable and sensitive photonic responses, as their enhanced light–matter interactions originate from the relative displacement or rotation angle in a stacking bilayer or multilayer periodic array. However, previous findings are mostly focused on atomically thin condensed matter, with limitations on the fabrication of multilayer structures and the control of rotation angles. Structured microwave moiré configurations are still difficult to realize. Here, we design a novel moiré structure, which presents unprecedented capability in the manipulation of light–matter interactions. Based on the effective medium theory and S-parameter retrieval process, the rotation matrix is introduced into the dispersion relation to analyze the underlying physical mechanism, where the permittivity tensor transforms from a diagonal matrix to a fully populated one, whereas the permeability tensor evolves from a unit matrix to a diagonal one and finally becomes fully filled, so that the electromagnetic responses change drastically as a result of stacking and rotation. Besides, the experiment and simulation results reveal hybridization of eigenmodes, drastic manipulation of surface states, and magic angle properties by controlling the mutual rotation angles between two isolated layers. Here, not only a more precisely controllable bilayer hyperbolic metasurface is introduced to moiré physics, the findings also open up a new avenue to realize flat bands at arbitrary frequencies, which shows great potential in active engineering of surface waves and designing multifunctional plasmonic devices.