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Switchable 2D–3D display through a metasurface lenticular lens – Nature

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Data supporting the findings of this study can be obtained from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the POSCO-POSTECH-RIST Convergence Research Center programme funded by POSCO, an industry-academia strategic grant funded by Samsung Research, the Samsung Research Funding and Incubation Center for Future Technology grant (no. SRFC-IT1901-52) funded by Samsung Electronics, the Korea Planning and Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT) grant (no. 1415179744/20019169, Alchemist project) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) of the Korean government, and the National Research Foundation (NRF) grants (nos. RS-2025-02217649, RS-2024-00356928, RS-2024-00462912, RS-2024-00416272, RS-2024-00337012, RS-2024-00408286, RS-2022-NR067559) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of the Korean government. This research was also supported by a grant of Korean ARPA-H Project through the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), funded by the Ministry of Health & Welfare, Republic of Korea (no. RS-2025-25454431). J.K. acknowledges the NRF Sejong Science fellowship (RS-2026-25496744) funded by the MSIT of the Korean government.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Seokil Moon, Joohoon Kim, Youngjin Jo

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Samsung Research, Samsung Electronics, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Seokil Moon, Youngjin Jo, Juwon Seo & Chang-Kun Lee

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Joohoon Kim, Kyungtae Kim, Seokwoo Kim & Junsuk Rho

  3. Department of Chemical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Junsuk Rho

  4. Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Junsuk Rho

  5. POSCO-POSTECH-RIST Convergence Research Center for Flat Optics and Metaphotonics, Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Junsuk Rho

  6. National Institute of Nanomaterials Technology (NINT), Pohang, Republic of Korea

    Junsuk Rho

Authors

  1. Seokil Moon
  2. Joohoon Kim
  3. Youngjin Jo
  4. Juwon Seo
  5. Kyungtae Kim
  6. Seokwoo Kim
  7. Chang-Kun Lee
  8. Junsuk Rho

Contributions

J.R. and C.-K.L. conceived the idea and initiated the project. S.M., J.K., Y.J., J.R. and C.-K.L. did theoretical studies and designed the whole experiments. S.M., J.K., K.K. and S.K. performed the numerical simulations and optimizations of the metasurface devices. J.K. and J.R. fabricated the metasurface devices. S.M., Y.J., J.S. and C.-K.L. performed the experimental characterizations and data analyses of the display system. S.M., J.K., Y.J. and J.R. wrote most of the paper. All authors confirmed the final paper. J.R. guided the entire work.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Chang-Kun Lee or Junsuk Rho.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature thanks Xiaoyue Ding, Cheng Zhang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 Efficiency of the MLL for three wavelengths.

The efficiency of the MLL is calculated using RCWA for different incident angles and positions. The angles (({theta }_{u},{theta }_{v})=({cos }^{-1}left(frac{xi -u}{d}right),{cos }^{-1}left(frac{eta -v}{d}right))) and the coordinate value ({u}_{1}) are defined in Fig. 2a. As shown in the graph, the efficiency varies with the incident angle and is biased toward one direction as ({u}_{1}) increases. This occurs because the local period of the MLL decreases, and the diffraction angle increases as the ray intersects with the edge of the MLL.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Measured efficiency of the fabricated MLL.

a, Measurement setup for the efficiency of the MLL. Since the signal from the MLL diverges or converges depending on the input polarization state, direct measurement is challenging. Instead, we measure the intensity of the DC noise and acquire the signal intensity by subtracting it from the power of the incident light without the MLL. To create quasi-collimated light, only a few pixels are turned on, and the rays are collimated using a CCD lens. A LP and QWP modulate the incident light into the RCP state. Then, second QWP and LP block the signal after the light passes through the MLL. The efficiency of the MLL is measured for different incident angles. To minimize polarization aberrations, the two LPs and two QWPs are positioned perpendicular to the light’s propagation direction. The output DC component is measured using an illuminance meter (CA-210, Konica Minolta). b, Measured efficiency of the fabricated MLL. For normal incidence, the measured efficiencies are 26.6%, 46.4%, and 54.8% for 620 nm, 535 nm, and 460 nm, respectively.

Extended Data Table 1 Simulated and measured diffraction efficiencies of metasurfaces with different diffraction angles

Full size table

Supplementary information

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Moon, S., Kim, J., Jo, Y. et al. Switchable 2D–3D display through a metasurface lenticular lens. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10318-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10318-9

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