Programmable Nanostructured Liquid Crystalline Film with Tailored Optical Degrees‐of‐Freedom toward Information Encryption

Abstract Manipulating multiple degrees‐of‐freedom (DoFs) of light has attracted considerable interest in optical encryption owing to its potential for enhanced security and increased data capacity. However, recent advances have demonstrated control over limited DoFs and most existing strategies still rely on computationally intensive inverse‐design algorithms and bulky spatial light modulation systems. Here, a bidirectional transmitted liquid crystalline film capable of simultaneously and customizable manipulating four DoFs: wavevector, phase, polarization, and wavelength is presented and demonstrated. Leveraging an aperture‐sharing strategy, secret information is embedded within the surface relief gratings of film, where reflective modulation precisely governs output wavevectors to induce encrypted information dispersion, effectively preventing unauthorized visual interception. Furthermore, carrier images are encoded into twisted molecular configurations, forming transmitted phase holograms that selectively respond to incident light with specific wavelengths and polarization states, thereby generating distinct optical keys. By adjusting various combinations of keys, the encrypted images are faithfully reconstructed with high fidelity and minimal crosstalk, enabling secure and accurate retrieval of concealed information. This approach enhances information security at the hardware level and paves the way for compact, high‐dimensional encryption platforms with scalable, real‐time decoding capabilities.