Metasurface-Based Three- Dimensional Imaging Technique

Three-dimensional (3D) imaging enables the elaborate numerical description of the physical space, leading to one of the most critical technologies in consumer electronics, automatic drive, machine vision, and virtual reality. The existing 3D imaging is limited by the physical mechanism of the traditional refraction element and diffraction optical element, so it is difficult to meet the performance requirements of miniaturization, integration, multi-function, large field of view, large numberical aperture, high spatial resolution, and so on. Metasurface, an intelligent surface composed of subwavelength nano-antenna arrays, can realize the artificial control of the amplitude, phase, polarization, and other parameters of the light field. Therefore, it has the advantages of small size, high spatial bandwidth product, high efficiency, multi-function, large field of view, and so on, showing the potential as a new generation of optical elements for 3D imaging. In this paper, the progress of mesurface-based 3D imaging technology is reviewed. Based on the analysis of the physical mechanism and application advantages of the metasurface, the application and performance of the mesurface-based 3D imaging technology such as structured light technology, time- flight method, optical field imaging, and point spread function engineering are introduced in detail. The challenges and future development directions of metasur-facebased 3D imaging technology are summarized and prospected.