Smart imaging enabled by meta-optics.

Light carries a vast amount of information about the world around us, but most of it remains invisible to our eyes. This information is contained in the light's polarisation, phase, momentum, and frequency range beyond the visible spectrum. Metasurfaces, arrays of subwavelength resonant nanostructures, offer unique opportunities to visualise this hidden information by enabling smart and precise measurements of these properties. Prominent examples include polarisation imaging, which can remove specular reflections or edge-detection that can improve object recognition for autonomous vehicles. 

This presentation will explain the underlying principles for the detection of such hidden properties of light and demonstrate new applications in astronomical and satellite imaging. These include hyperspectral and polarisation imaging, as well as in aberration correction for large telescope adaptive optics. We will further show how metasurfaces can enhance the conversion of infrared light to visible, enabling compact and low-noise infrared imaging. 

Finally, we'll demonstrate how such nonlinear up-conversion can offer unique opportunities for all-optical image processing and advanced image processing for object recognition applications.