On Aug 25, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) announced a breakthrough in LiDAR technology by its intelligent microsystems team: a dual-mode LiDAR system enabled by mechanically tunable hybrid cascaded metasurfaces. The research, titled “A dual-mode LiDAR system enabled by mechanically tunable hybrid cascaded metasurfaces”, was published in the journal Light: Science & Applications.

The project was jointly carried out with Tsinghua University’s Department of Precision Instruments and the Intelligent Microsystems Laboratory at Beijing Information Science and Technology University. Assistant Researcher Zhang Lingyun from HUST and Tsinghua PhD student Zhang Chi are co-first authors.

The system leverages geometric and propagation phase cascaded metasurfaces to modulate light polarization, enabling flexible switching between high-precision beam scanning and high-efficiency flash illumination modes. This dual capability allows the LiDAR to adapt to diverse 3D sensing scenarios.

Tsinghua University’s research group led by Associate Professor Zhao Xiaoguang developed a dual-mode beam control device combining a tunable hybrid cascaded metasurface with shape-memory alloy microactuators. The device combines the advantages of point-array scanning and flash imaging, allowing rapid switching between high-resolution scanning and single-shot uniform illumination according to detection needs.

Building on this device, the team developed a dual-mode LiDAR system with an adaptive 3D reconstruction solution. In flash mode, the system captures a full-scene snapshot to quickly detect target boundaries and complexity. The metasurface’s multi-channel, high-degree-of-freedom beam-shaping capability allows the system to combine the high precision of scanning LiDAR with the efficiency of flash LiDAR, enhancing adaptability and flexibility in complex environments and varied detection tasks.

Thanks to the metasurface’s ultra-thin, lightweight, and integrable design, the team was able to develop a lightweight, precision-adjustable beam control platform compatible with multiple 3D imaging methods, including time-of-flight and binocular vision, offering excellent system integration and functional expansion capabilities.

Source: School of Mechanical Science and Engineering of HUST