Breaking the Diffraction-Encoding Limit for High-Capacity Meta-Holography via Multiorder Decoupling.

Abstract

Metasurfaces have enabled precise manipulation of optical wavefronts through engineered nanostructures, thereby significantly advancing meta-holography applications. However, most existing meta-holography methods generate diffraction fields within a single diffraction order, and the achievable field-of-view (FoV) is strictly constrained by the lattice period. These limitations severely restrict the accessible diffraction angular range and the information encoding capacity, impeding large-area and low-cost practical applications. Here, we propose a multidiffraction-order decoupling scheme that breaks the diffraction-encoding limit based on single-cell metasurfaces. By decoupling the phase correlations among different diffraction orders, a typical single-cell metasurface is expanded to support 23 encoded holographic channels under a relaxed lattice period (>four times the wavelength). In addition, we achieve a holo-display with a FoV up to 168°, whereas a conventional metasurface requires a subwavelength period to enable the same FoV. This strategy expands the encodable holographic space by an order of magnitude while reducing the fabrication difficulty and accuracy demand, making it potentially compatible with large-area fabrication using photolithography techniques. Overall, we envision that the proposed multiorder decoupling scheme breaks the conventional diffraction-encoding limit and provides a promising route toward large-FoV optical displays, high-capacity holographic storage/encryption, and scalable photonic system fabrication.