Nano-antenna elements for controlling optical phase

We demonstrate the use of nano-antenna unit cells composed of coupled dipole and patch elements over a reflective back plane, which are designed to control the phase of a reflected optical beam. The antennas were studied both numerically and experimentally and allow exact control over the output phase in the range of 0⁰-360⁰. Several diffractive optical applications are shown numerically and experimentally: Blazed gratings which allow deflection of the output beam to high reflection angles show very high diffraction efficiency, and arbitrary wave shapes such as computer generated holograms can be formed with very high efficiency and large angles relative to the incident beam. The optical conversion efficiency was measured to be above 40% for all applications.