Multi‐Dimensional Multiplexing Cascaded Liquid Crystal Elements for Compartmentalized Optical Encryption

ABSTRACT Liquid crystal (LC) planar devices, as promising optical platforms, have been extensively explored for holography encryption due to their excellent versatile integration capabilities, ultra‐thin structure, and low fabrication cost. Unfortunately, most existing single‐layer LC devices only exhibit limited modulation capabilities, resulting in constrained information capacity and low security. Moreover, such encoded information cannot be effectively partitioned among different users, which severely hinders the application of planar diffractive devices in multi‐user encryption scenarios. Herein, we demonstrate a large information‐capacity, high‐security, multi‐dimensional multiplexing cascaded LC encryption system that integrates rotational and polarization‐position multiplexing. The secret sharing and compartmentalized access control mechanisms in our design ensure that the loss of any device does not lead to the leakage of critical secret information, and no individual user can access encrypted information belonging to others. As a proof of concept, 13 distinct channels in the cascaded LC system are confirmed both experimentally and through simulations. Consequently, this proposed cascaded LC platform offers an effective approach for image display, secure authentication, and data storage, paving the way for next‐generation secure information communication technologies.