  Creating materials with time-variant properties is critical for breaking
reciprocity that imposes fundamental limitations to wave propagation. However,
it is challenging to realize efficient and ultrafast temporal modulation in a
photonic system. Here, leveraging both spatial and temporal phase manipulation
offered by an ultrathin nonlinear metasurface, we experimentally demonstrated
nonreciprocal light reflection at wavelengths around 860 nm. The metasurface,
with traveling-wave modulation upon nonlinear Kerr building blocks, creates
spatial phase gradient and multi-terahertz temporal phase wobbling, which leads
to unidirectional photonic transitions in both momentum and energy spaces. We
observed completely asymmetric reflections in forward and backward light
propagations within a sub-wavelength interaction length of 150 nm. Our approach
pointed out a potential means for creating miniaturized and integratable
nonreciprocal optical components.
