Switchable Bright‐Field Imaging and Corner Detection with an Electrically Tunable Metalens
Peng Tang, Youngsun Jeon, Xiaotong Li, Yeseul Kim, Junhwa Seong, Shiqi Hu, Kyungtae Kim, Guoqiang Li, Trevon Badloe, Junsuk Rho
Abstract
Abstract Traditional corner detection methods are typically based on digital techniques. In this work, a metalens is cascaded with a liquid crystal device to rapidly switch between bright‐field imaging and corner detection modes in an optical device. Specifically, a conventional hyperbolic mode under left‐circularly polarized incidence is employed for bright‐field imaging and a focused second‐order vortex mode under right‐circularly polarized incidence for corner detection. At corner regions, overlapping double‐line edges form dual corner, and their center corresponds to the original corner in the image, serving as the basis for the detection mechanism. The tunable metalens offers a versatile and efficient platform for multifunctional optical imaging, with promising applications in defect detection, target recognition, and image matching.