S. Lan
Texas A&M University, Texas, United States
Keywords: Metavehicle, Light Sail, Optical Control
The quintessential hallmark distinguishing optical metasurfaces from conventional components is the engineering of subwavelength metaatoms to manipulate light at will. Enabling this freedom, in a reverse manner, to control objects constituted by metasurfaces could expand our capability for optical manipulation to go beyond the predominant scope of microscopic and sub-microscopic scales. Here, we introduce a metaphotonic force that could propel and levitate metasurfaces by creating abrupt phase discontinuity at the interface defined by metaatoms. To do that, we design a spatially distributed optical phase gradient with purposely arranged silicon nanopillars, inducing an extra momentum that breaks the momentum balance of input and output light. The imbalanced momentum of light retrospectively gives rise to the metaphotonic force for the maneuvering and, very importantly, levitating of the constituting metasurface. The maneuver and levitation are fully controllable by the in- and out-of-plane metaphotonic forces, matching well with our first-principle analysis. As the metaphotonic force augments with increased dimensions of metasurfaces, it could unleash new opportunities for metaphotonic control in large settings, such as interstellar light sails.