photonics Photonics is a branch of optics that involves the application of generation, detection, and manipulation of light in form of photons through emission, transmission, modulation, signal processing, switching, amplification, and sensing. Though ...

, a meta-waveguide is a physical structures that guides

electromagnetic waves In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible) lig ...

with engineered functional subwavelength structures. Meta-waveguides are the result of combining the fields of

metamaterial A metamaterial (from the Greek word μετά ''meta'', meaning "beyond" or "after", and the Latin word ''materia'', meaning "matter" or "material") is any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring materials. ...

s and metasurfaces into

integrated optics A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) or integrated optical circuit is a microchip containing two or more photonic components which form a functioning circuit. This technology detects, generates, transports, and processes light. Photonic integrated c ...

. The design of the subwavelength architecture allows exotic waveguiding phenomena to be explored. Meta-waveguides can be classified by

waveguide A waveguide is a structure that guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Without the physical constraint of a waveguide, wave intensities de ...

platforms or by design methods. If classified by underlying waveguide platform, engineered subwavelength structures can be classified in combination with

dielectric waveguide An optical waveguide is a physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum. Common types of optical waveguides include optical fiber waveguides, transparent dielectric waveguides made of plastic and glass, liquid light ...

optical fiber An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to ...

s, or plasmonic waveguides. If classified by design methods, meta-waveguides can be classified as either using design primarily by physical intuition, or by computer algorithm based inverse design methods. Meta-waveguides can provide new degrees of design freedom to the available structural library for

optical waveguides An optical waveguide is a physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum. Common types of optical waveguides include optical fiber waveguides, transparent dielectric waveguides made of plastic and glass, liquid light ...

in integrated photonics. Advantages can include enhancing the performance of conventional waveguide based integrated optical devices and creating novel device functionalities. Applications of meta-waveguides include beam/polarization splitting, integrated waveguide mode converters, versatile waveguide couplers, lab-on-fiber sensing, nano-optic endoscope imaging, on-chip wavefront shaping, structured-light generations, and

optical neural network An optical neural network is a physical implementation of an artificial neural network with photonics, optical components. Early optical neural networks used a photorefractive Volume hologram to interconnect arrays of input neurons to arrays of o ...

References

__NEWSECTIONLINK__ {{DEFAULTSORT:Meta-waveguide Photonics Nanotechnology Applied and interdisciplinary physics Electromagnetic radiation