Structural coloration generates colors by the interaction between incident light and micro- or nano-scale structures. It has received tremendous interest for decades, due to advantages including robustness against bleaching and environmentally friendly properties (compared with conventional pigments and dyes). As a versatile coloration strategy, the tuning of structural colors based on micro- and nanoscale photonic structures has been extensively explored and can enable a broad range of applications including displays, anti-counterfeiting, and coating. However, scholarly research on structural colors has had limited impact on commercial products because of their disadvantages in cost, scalability, and fabrication. In this review, we analyze the key challenges and opportunities in the development of structural colors. We first summarize the fundamental mechanisms and design strategies for structural colors while reviewing the recent progress in realizing dynamic structural coloration. The promising potential applications including optical information processing and displays are also discussed while elucidating the most prominent challenges that prevent them from translating into technologies on the market. Finally, we address the new opportunities that are underexplored by the structural coloration community but can be achieved through multidisciplinary research within the emerging research areas.

Vortex waves with orbital angular momentum (OAM) are a highly active research topic in various fields. In this paper, we design and investigate cylindrical metagratings (CMs) with an even number of unit cells that can efficiently achieve vortex localization and specific OAM selective conversion. The multifunctional manipulation of vortex waves and the new OAM conservation law have further been confirmed through analytical calculations and numerical simulations. In addition, we qualitatively and quantitatively determine the OAM range for vortex localization and the OAM value of vortex selective conversion and also explore the stability for performance and potential applications of the designed structure. This work holds potential applications in particle manipulation and optical communication.

Topological edge states (TESs), arising from topologically nontrivial phases, provide a powerful toolkit for the architecture design of photonic integrated circuits, since they are highly robust and strongly localized at the boundaries of topological insulators. It is highly desirable to be able to control TES transport in photonic implementations. Enhancing the coupling between the TESs in a finite-size optical lattice is capable of exchanging light energy between the boundaries of a topological lattice, hence facilitating the flexible control of TES transport. However, existing strategies have paid little attention to enhancing the coupling effects between the TESs through the finite-size effect. Here, we establish a bridge linking the interaction between the TESs in a finite-size optical lattice using the Landau–Zener model so as to provide an alternative way to modulate/control the transport of topological modes. We experimentally demonstrate an edge-to-edge topological transport with high efficiency at telecommunication wavelengths in silicon waveguide lattices. Our results may power up various potential applications for integrated topological photonics.

Metasurface has provided unprecedented freedoms in manipulating electromagnetic (EM) waves, exhibiting fascinating functions. Conventionally, these functions are implemented right on metasurfaces, where spatial modulations on EM wave amplitudes or phases are achieved by meta-atoms. This study proposes the concept of virtual metasurface (VM), which is formed by arrays of foci away from the entity metasurface. Unlike conventional metasurfaces, spatial modulations on the amplitudes or phases of EM waves occur in the air, with a focal length distance from the entity metasurface. As a proof of concept, we demonstrated a transmissive VM. The entity metasurface consists of transmissive focusing metasurface tiles (TFMTs) with the same focal length. Two TFMTs were designed with phase difference π to enable the most typical checkerboard configuration. The TFMTs were assembled to form the entity metasurface, whereas their foci formed the VM. Due to the π phase difference among adjacent foci, EM propagation along the normal direction was cancelled, leading to four tilted far-field beams. The concept of VM can be readily extended to higher frequencies from terahertz to optical regimes and may find wide applications in communication, camouflage, and other fields.

Transformation optics (TO) facilitates flexible designs of spatial modulation of optical materials via coordinate transformations, thus, enabling on-demand manipulations of electromagnetic waves. However, the application of TO theory in control of hyperbolic waves remains elusive due to the spatial metric signature transition from (+,+) to (-,+) of a two-dimensional hyperbolic geometry. Here, we proposed a distinct Pythagorean theorem, which leads to establishing an anisotropic Fermat’s principle. It helps to construct anisotropic geometries and is a powerful tool for manipulating hyperbolic waves at the nanoscale and polaritons. Making use of absolute instruments, the excellent collimating and focusing behaviors of naturally in-plane hyperbolic polaritons in van der Waals α–MoO3 layers are demonstrated, which opens up a new way for polaritons manipulation.

Recently studied bound states in the continuum (BICs) enable perfect localization of light and enhance light–matter interactions although systems are optically open. They have found applications in numerous areas, including optical nonlinearity, light emitters, and nano-sensors. However, their unidirectional nature in nonreciprocal devices is still elusive because such trapping states are easily destroyed when the symmetry of an optical system is broken. Herein, we propose nonreciprocal and dynamically tunable BICs for unidirectional confinement of light and symmetry-protected BICs at Γ-point by introducing antiparallel magnetism into the optical system. We demonstrate that such BICs can be achieved by using topological magnetic Weyl semimetals near zero-index frequency without any structural asymmetry, and are largely tunable via modifying the Fermi level. Our results reveal a regime of extreme light manipulation and interaction with emerging quantum materials for various practical applications.

Light beams carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM) have inspired various advanced applications, and such abundant practical applications in turn demand complex generation and manipulation of optical vortices. Here, we propose a multifocal graphene vortex generator, which can produce broadband angular momentum cascade containing continuous integer non-diffracting vortex modes. Our device naturally embodies a continuous spiral slit vortex generator and a zone plate, which enables the generation of high-quality continuous vortex modes with deep depths of foci. Meanwhile, the generated vortex modes can be simultaneously tuned through incident wavelength and position of the focal plane. The elegant structure of the device largely improves the design efficiency and can be fabricated by laser nanofabrication in a single step. Moreover, the outstanding property of graphene may enable new possibilities in enormous practical applications, even in some harsh environments, such as aerospace.

极化激元是光与不同极化子相互作用形成的半光半物质的准粒子，可用于亚波长尺度的光场调控，在光学成像、非线性效应增强及新型超构材料设计等领域扮演着举足重轻的角色。近年来，随着人们对转角范德华尔斯材料体系的制备工艺和物性研究的不断深入，其中许多新奇的极化激元现象也被揭示。本文综述了近年来转角范德华尔斯材料在光学领域的研究进展，包含转角石墨烯体系中的等离极化激元，转角二维过渡金属硫化物中的激子极化激元与六方氮化硼（h-BN）与 α-MoO₃体系中的声子极化激元等。最后展望转角二维范德华尔斯材料中的极化激元在纳米尺度下光与物质相互作用的有效控制方面所展现的巨大潜力。