Researchers have experimentally realized the all-optical control over the wavefront of light beams at unprecedented, ultrafast speed. The on-demand shaping of wavefronts, demonstrated for the deflection of a beam and the structuring of the orbital angular momentum of photons, is achieved on the femtosecond timescale in a forefront meta-optical system, combining a WSe2 monolayer and a dielectric metasurface.
The study, published in Nature Communications, represents a critical step forward the robust, ultrahigh-speed encoding of information, potentially revolutionizing optical communications and free space optical links, which could thus reach response times compatible with real-world telecom applications.

The research was a collaboration between the Friedrich Schiller University and Max Planck School of Photonics in Jena (Germany), and the Physics Department of Politecnico di Milano, funded by H2020 European FET-OPEN Grant METAFAST (no. 899673), whose the PoliMi Physics Department is the leading unit and Prof. Giuseppe Della Valle, Associate Professor at the Physics Department, is coordinator.

Link to the open access paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46642-9

Link to the METAFAST project: https://www.metafast-h2020.eu/