Conformal metasurface-coated dielectric waveguides for highly confined broadband optical activity with simultaneous low-visibility and reduced crosstalk.

The ability to achieve simultaneous control over the various electromagnetic properties of dielectric waveguides, including mode confinement, polarization, scattering signature, and crosstalk, which are critical to system miniaturization, diversity in functionality, and non-invasive integration, has been a highly sought after yet elusive goal. Currently existing methods, which rely on three-dimensional artificial cores or claddings and/or structural chirality, provide efficient paths for obtaining either highly confined modes, optical activity, or a low-scattering signature, but at the expense of increased propagation loss, form factor and weight. Here, by tailoring the unique anisotropy and exploiting the inter-cell coupling of metasurface coatings, we report a unified approach for simultaneously controlling the diverse optical properties of dielectric waveguides. The experimentally demonstrated highly confined sub-wavelength dielectric waveguide with a low-visibility and broadband optical activity represents a transformative wave manipulation capability with far reaching implications, offering new pathways for future miniaturization of dielectric waveguide-based systems with simultaneous polarization and scattering control.Controlling all the optical properties of dielectric waveguides is a challenging task and often requires complicated core- and cladding designs. Here, Jiang et al. demonstrate that a thin metasurface coating can control several optical properties simultaneously over a broad frequency range.