Polarization, the path traced by light’s electric field vector, appears in all areas of optics. In recent decades, various technologies have enabled the precise control of light’s polarization state, even on a subwavelength scale, at optical frequencies. In this review, we provide a thorough, high-level review of the fundamentals of polarization optics and detail how the Jones calculus, alongside Fourier optics, can be used to analyze, classify, and compare these optical elements. We provide a review of work in this area across multiple technologies and research areas, including recent developments in optical metasurfaces. This review unifies a large body of work on spatially varying polarization optics and may be of interest to both researchers in optics and designers of optical systems more generally.

中文翻译：

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衍射光学和超表面中的偏振

偏振，即光的电场矢量所追踪的路径，出现在光学的所有领域。近几十年来，各种技术已经能够在光频率下精确控制光的偏振态，甚至在亚波长范围内。在这篇评论中，我们对偏振光学的基本原理进行了全面、高层次的回顾，并详细说明了如何使用琼斯演算以及傅立叶光学来分析、分类和比较这些光学元件。我们回顾了该领域跨多个技术和研究领域的工作，包括光学超表面的最新发展。这篇综述综合了大量关于空间变化偏振光学的工作，可能对光学研究人员和光学系统设计者更普遍感兴趣。