Polarization beam splitters, converters and analyzers based on a metasurface composed of regularly arranged silicon nanospheres with controllable coupling strength.

A metasurface composed of regularly arranged silicon (Si) nanospheres (NSs) with coupling was investigated both theoretically and numerically based on the Mie theory, the simple Lorentz line shape model and the finite-difference time-domain technique. By deliberately controlling the coupling strength between Si NSs through the design of the lattice constants of a rectangular lattice, polarization beam splitters, converters and analyzers with good performance can be successfully constructed. A square lattice as well as a large incidence angle was employed to build the polarization beam splitters and converters. At an incidence angle of 80°, the polarization beam splitters can completely reflect the s-polarized light and transmit the p-polarized light in a wavelength region of 510-620 nm. For a circularly polarized light incident on the polarization converters, one can get s-polarized light in the reflection direction and p-polarized light in the transmission direction. For the polarization beam analyzers, a rectangular lattice with deliberately chosen lattice constants was employed and the transmissivity of a linearly polarized light can be continuously adjusted from 0 to ~0.90 by simply rotating the metasurface. We revealed that the broadening of either the electric dipole resonance or the magnetic dipole resonance or both of them, which is induced by the asymmetric coupling of Si NSs, is responsible for the modification in the transmissivity spectrum of the metasurface. Our findings provide a guideline for designing photonic devices based on the metasurfaces composed of Si NSs with controllable coupling strength.