Exceptional points, as degenerate points of non-Hermitian parity-time symmetric systems, have many unique physical properties. Due to its flexible control of electromagnetic waves, a metasurface is frequently used in the field of nanophotonics. In this work, we developed a parity-time symmetric metasurface and implemented the 2π topological phase surrounding an exceptional point. Compared with Pancharatnam-Berry phase, the topological phase around an exceptional point can achieve independent regulation of several circular polarization beams. We combined the Pancharatnam-Berry phase with the exceptional topological phase and proposed a composite coding metasurface to achieve reflection decoupling of different circular polarizations. This work provides a design idea for polarimetric coding metasurfaces in the future.

Vector bending sensing has been consistently growing in many fields. A low-cost and high sensitivity vector bending sensor based on a chirped long-period fiber grating (LPFG) with an off-axis micro helix taper is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The grating is composed of several sections of single-mode fiber with gradually larger lengths, and the off-axis micro helix tapers with fixed lengths when they are fabricated by using the arc discharge technology. The large refractive index modulation in the micro-helix taper greatly reduces the sensor size. The total length of the sensor is only 4.67 mm. The micro-helix taper-based LPFG can identify the bending direction due to the asymmetric structure introduced by the micro helix. The experimental results show that the transmission spectra of the sensor have distinct responses for different bending directions, and the maximum bending sensitivity is 14.08 nm/m^-1 in the range from 0.128 m^-1 to 1.28 m^-1. The proposed bending sensor possesses pronounced advantages, such as high sensitivity, small size, low cost, and orientation identification, and offers a very promising method for bend measurement.

A multi-focus optical fiber lens is numerically demonstrated based on an all-dielectric metasurface structure. The metasurface consists of an array of rectangular silicon resonators with varying widths in order to obtain the required phase distribution. The core diameter of the multimode fiber is large enough to contain sufficient resonance units. The spatial distribution of the dielectric resonators is dictated by spatial multiplexing, including interleaving meta-atoms and lens aperture division, to achieve multi-focus properties. The proposed optical fiber metalens can produce two or three focal points along the longitudinal direction with high focusing efficiency. The size of every focal point is close to the diffraction limit, and the relative intensity on each focus can be controlled by adjusting the number of the respective resonators. The proposed optical fiber lens will have a great potential in the fields of integrated optics and multifunctional micro/nano devices.

We theoretically demonstrate a compact all-dielectric metasurface fiber-tip lens composed of sub-wavelength amorphous silicon on the end face of a multimode fiber. The full 2π phase control was realized by varying the widths of resonant units. The tunable focal length is achieved by using the thermal-optic effect of amorphous silicon. The focal length increases from 309 μm to 407 μm when the temperature changes by 300 K. The temperature controlled all-fiber integrated lens is compact and with high efficiency and provides an excellent platform of a fiber-tip lab. Meanwhile, the proposed fiber lens does not have any structural changes during dynamic tuning, which improves the durability and repeatability of the devices.

In-fiber integrated optics is an attempt to use silica fiber as a substrate, integrating various optical paths or optical components into a single fiber, to build a functional optical device or component, and to realize a micro optical system, achieving various functions. In-fiber integrated optics is expected to be a new branch of photonics integration. This integration technique enables convenient light beams control and manipulation inside in one fiber. It also provides a research platform with micro and nano scale for interaction between light wave and microfluidic materials. In this review, we briefly summarize the main ideas and key technologies of the in-fiber integrated optics by series integration examples.