Real-Time Phase Imaging with an Asymmetric Transfer Function Metasurface

The conversion of phase variations in an optical wavefield into intensity information is of fundamental importance for optical imaging including the microscopy of biological cells. Recently, meta-optical devices have demonstrated all-optical, ultracompact image processing of optical wavefields but are limited by their symmetric optical response to amplitude and phase gradients. Here, we describe a metasurface that exploits photonic spin–orbit coupling to create an asymmetric optical transfer function for real-time phase imaging. We demonstrate experimentally the effect of the asymmetry with the generation of high contrast pseudo-3D intensity images of phase variations in an optical wavefield without the need for post-processing. This non-interferometric method has potential applications in biological live cell imaging and real-time wavefront sensing.