Holographic silicon metasurfaces for total angular momentum demultiplexing applications in telecom

The simultaneous processing of orbital angular momentum (OAM) and polarization has recently acquired particular importance and interest in a wide range of fields ranging from telecommunications to high-dimensional quantum cryptography. Due to their inherently polarization-sensitive optical behavior, Pancharatnam–Berry optical elements (PBOEs), acting on the geometric phase, have proven to be useful for the manipulation of complex light beams with orthogonal polarization states using a single optical element. In this work, different PBOEs have been computed, realized, and optically analyzed for the sorting of beams with orthogonal OAM and polarization states at the telecom wavelength of 1310 nm. The geometric-phase control is obtained by inducing a spatially-dependent form birefringence on a silicon substrate, patterned with properly-oriented subwavelength gratings. The digital grating structure is generated with high-resolution electron beam lithography on a resist mask and transferred to the silicon substrate using inductively coupled plasma-reactive ion etching. The optical characterization of the fabricated samples confirms the expected capability to detect circularly-polarized optical vortices with different handedness and orbital angular momentum.