ArXiv · 2026
Image processing lies at the foundation of many modern technologies, such as augmented reality and autonomous driving, yet conventional digital approaches remain energy-intensive and limited in speed. Nonlocal metasurfaces - 2D structures engineered at the nanoscale to support delocalized, dispersion engineered resonances - provide a fast, energy-efficient and ultrathin platform to perform image processing directly on the light path. Introducing tunability in this platform is an outstanding challenge, and would enable dynamic real-time control over the implemented processing operation, facilitating flexible integration into adaptive and multifunctional photonic architectures. Here, we demonstrate optically tunable edge detection at ultrafast speeds by integrating a dielectric nonlocal metasurface with multilayer WS2, whose strong exciton-driven optical response enables dynamic control of the metasurface nonlocality at sub-ps speeds. Using resonant optical pumping of the A-exciton in WS2, the metasurface transfer function is rapidly switched from edge detection to bright-field imaging by tuning its spatial nonlocality. Operating in the visible spectral range at a wavelength around 700 nm, the device shows ultrafast switching times and reaches an amplitude modulation depth of 11.5 dB for normal incident light. This approach provides a reconfigurable, ultrathin, all-optical platform for adaptive optical computing systems and highlights the potential of the highly nonlinear properties of 2D materials for active metasurfaces at ultrafast speeds.
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