In the patent applications published on June 18, 2026, one Samsung Electronics filing stands out for what it is directed to at the device level rather than the fab level: an image sensor whose light-receiving surface carries a built-in meta-optical structure. The application, US20260173556A1, is a published application — not a granted patent — so what follows is a reading of the claimed scope as filed, not a statement about whether any claim will issue.

The independent claim, as reflected in the application's summary, is built around a single sensor stack with five named elements working together. The first is a stack structure: a first substrate with a first (light-receiving) surface and an opposite second surface, holding a photoelectric conversion region for each pixel of a plurality of pixels. Bonded beneath it through a first interconnection structure is a second substrate carrying the logic elements that drive those pixels, joined by a second interconnection structure between the two. That two-wafer arrangement — pixels on one die, driving logic on another, connected through stacked interconnect layers — is the backside-illuminated stacked-sensor topology that dominates modern phone cameras. The claim language places the inventive weight not on the stack itself but on what sits above it.

The element that does the work is the last one. On the first surface, the claim recites an inorganic layer, and on that inorganic layer a meta-optical structure comprising a plurality of dielectric layers, with nano-prism patterns arranged in at least one of those dielectric layers. In plain terms, the application is directed to replacing or supplementing the conventional microlens-and-color-filter array on top of a sensor with engineered sub-wavelength structures — nano-prisms patterned into dielectric films — that steer incoming light. That is the limitation that distinguishes the claim from a generic stacked sensor, and it is the phrase to watch as the application is examined.

An image sensor includes a stack structure comprising a first substrate having a first surface, and a second surface, and including a photoelectric conversion region for each pixel of a plurality of pixels; … a inorganic layer including an inorganic material on the first surface; and a meta-optical structure including a plurality of dielectric layers on the inorganic layer, and nano-prism patterns arranged in at least one dielectric layer among the plurality of dielectric layers.— IMAGE SENSOR, US20260173556A1

Where the application lands in the CPC landscape

The application is classified across two complementary neighborhoods. The image-sensor structure groups appear under H10F 39/* — specifically H10F 39/806, H10F 39/182, H10F 39/8057, H10F 39/809, and H10F 39/811 — the subclass family that covers solid-state image-sensor construction, light-directing arrangements, and pixel optics. Alongside them sit two H04N 25/* symbols (H04N 25/703 and H04N 25/79), the circuitry side of the house that addresses pixel readout and sensor control. The pairing is itself informative: the filing is classified both as a physical optoelectronic structure and as a sensor-circuit invention, consistent with a claim set that spans the stacked silicon and the optics layered on top of it.

For readers mapping the field, the meta-optics angle is the notable coordinate. Sub-wavelength dielectric structures placed over a pixel array are an alternative to the refractive microlens that has sat atop image sensors for decades; classifying that work inside H10F 39/* puts this application in the same landscape neighborhood as conventional pixel-optics filings rather than in a separate metasurface bucket. The application reads on a sensor where the light-shaping is done by patterned dielectric layers rather than a molded lens — a distinction that lives entirely in the claim's final limitation.

The application in context: one cluster, one publication day

The June 18 drop carried a sizable Samsung Electronics presence, and the meta-optical sensor does not appear in isolation. The same publication day included a second Samsung image-sensor application, US20260173563A1, directed to a dual vertical gate with two vertical portions separated by an isolation area and joined by a connection portion — a pixel-transistor structure rather than an optics structure, and a useful contrast to the meta-optics filing in showing the company filing across both the optical and the transistor layers of the sensor.

On the display side of the same drop, Samsung published a cluster of micro-LED applications. US20260173693A1 is directed to a display module using through-glass vias to route power and reference voltages up to micro pixel controllers on a glass substrate. US20260173610A1 describes a display-module repair method in which a light-conversion layer is placed over the blue LED of a pixel whose red or green LED fails to illuminate. US20260173586A1 claims a display device with three stacked epitaxial structures emitting first, second, and third wavelengths, topped by a lens and an anti-reflection layer with a specified refractive-index range. And on the system side, US20260172626A1 is directed to an electronic apparatus that classifies video genre with a neural network model and applies genre-specific image-quality processing — the kind of on-device inference claim that increasingly accompanies hardware filings.

Read together, the cluster is a snapshot of where one assignee's consumer-imaging and display applications were published on a single day: a meta-optical sensor and a vertical-gate sensor on the capture side; through-glass-via routing, pixel repair, and stacked-RGB emission on the display side; and a neural-network image-quality apparatus tying the two ends together. Every one of these is a pending application classified, examined, and — for now — unresolved. The meta-optical image sensor is simply the one whose distinguishing limitation is the most legible from the face of the claim: a sensor stack whose optics have moved from a molded microlens to nano-prism patterns engineered into dielectric film.