Polarization metasurface enables tunable 1D directional edge enhancement

Directional edge enhancement, as a specialized edge detection method, plays a pivotal role in extracting morphological information for object classification and autonomous driving applications. However, existing approaches often lack simplicity and tunability for 1D directional edge enhancement, presenting a critical gap. To address this, we present a novel meta-imaging device that leverages a polarization-dependent metasurface to achieve efficient, tunable directional edge enhancement for both amplitude and phase targets. By simply controlling the polarization state of the incident beam, our device can switch between two distinct edge enhancement modes. Numerical simulations confirm that our meta-imaging system successfully performs dual-functional edge enhancement at a wavelength of 0.8 µm. Furthermore, we investigate the robustness of our device under other wavelengths, demonstrating its stable performance. We believe this compact and versatile system holds significant potential for applications in optical analog computing, autonomous driving, and related fields.