Polymer-based tunable optical components allow for metasurfaces that can switched with light

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-polymer-based-tunable-optical-components.html

"combined polymers reacting to light with metasurfaces... metasurface (coating) light refraction properties switched between different states when absorb different wavelengths, based on polymer's dye... polymers show different absorption depending on dye... 2 different dyes each applied separately to metasurface, create different effects than when combined and then applied... more energy-efficient and faster optical: signal processing, data processing, neural networks, sensors"