Basis-Independent Geometric Phase Modulation in Circularly Birefringent Plasmonic Structures
Geometric phase in metasurfaces is conventionally realized using spatially rotated linearly birefringent meta-atoms under circularly polarized illumination. Here we demonstrate that full $\sim2π$ geometric phase modulation can be achieved through circular birefringence and observed under linear polarization excitation. We introduce a plasmonic metasurface composed of spatially rotated chiral spiral unit cells designed to produce space-variant circular retardance. This generates a geometric phase ramp equivalent to a blazed grating, leading to $\pm1$ diffraction orders in momentum space. Using leakage radiation microscopy, we directly resolve these orders and show how their intensities depend upon the input linear polarization confirming the geometric origin of the phase. We theoretically analyze the phenomenon using a rotated Poincaré space and confirm our results by direct Stokes parameters measurement. These results establish basis-independent approach to geometric phase accumulation in circularly birefringent plasmonic metasurfaces.