Among these innovations, beams carrying orbital angular momentum have emerged as a pivotal research topic. Their distinctive ring-like intensity distributions and helical wavefronts have proven to be powerful tools in particle trapping and manipulation, while also expanding the information-carrying capacity of photons. Researchers have particularly concentrated on tailoring the spatial intensity, phase, and polarization configurations of these beams, aiming for unprecedented levels of control and arbitrary customization.
Despite these advancements, achieving complete control over all beam properties remains a formidable challenge. Current approaches often rely on complex optical setups involving many elements that require precise alignment and control, which poses significant obstacles to efficient light manipulation and integration, highlighting the need for more streamlined and effective solutions in this rapidly evolving field.
For the first time, advanced optical elements have been designed and fabricated for the generation of arbitrary ring patterns of light in a compact and efficient way using a single optical element. The study(doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01859-1) has been conducted by Dr. Andrea Vogliardi, Dr. Gianluca Ruffato, Dr. Daniele Bonaldo and Prof. Filippo Romanato from the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Padova University, in collaboration with Dr. Simone Dal Zilio at IOM-CNR in Trieste, in Italy. The research results have been recently published in Light: Science and Applications.
The enabling technology is represented by dual-functional metaoptics in silicon, providing unprecedented control thanks to the manipulation of light at the subwavelength scale. By processing in parallel orthogonal polarization states to impart custom phase and intensity distributions, it is possible to recombine them into arbitrary and tunable spatially-variant configurations.
These beams exhibit unique properties that promise valuable applications in optical tweezing, the manipulation of low-refractive-index particles, the trapping of cold atoms for quantum computing, and high-capacity telecommunications. Moreover, their generation with single and integrable metaoptics represents a significant breakthrough, paving the way for the practical implementation and integration of these applications in real scenarios, bridging the gap between theoretical potential and tangible, deployable technologies.
DOI
10.1038/s41377-025-01859-1
Original Source URL
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41377-025-01859-1
Lucy Wang
BioDesign Research
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