Midinfrared real-time polarization imaging with all-dielectric metasurfaces

Polarization is an inherent property of light that contains information that is usually ignored by intensity-based sensors. A polarization imaging system forms the images over an extended scene in different polarization basis sets, which is widely used in fields ranging from target detection to biosensing. Typically, conventional polarization imaging systems based on polarization filtering form images only for linearly polarized light and use bulky and complex elements. Here, we proposed an all-silicon metasurface for midinfrared (MIR) active-illumination polarization imaging. The metasurface operates at a wavelength of 10.6 μm and functions as a division of focal plane imaging mask. In experiment, the single-layered metasurface can simultaneously form images in two orthogonal polarization basis sets in a real-time condition, which realizes both linear polarization imaging and chiral imaging. This work unveils the potential of compact MIR polarization detection metasystems.