Yu Horie

Dielectric metasurfaces for complete control of phase and polarization with subwavelength spatial resolution and high transmission

Metasurfaces are planar structures that locally modify the polarization, phase and amplitude of light in reflection or transmission, thus enabling lithographically patterned flat optical components with functionalities controlled by design. Transmissive metasurfaces are especially important, as most optical systems used in practice operate in transmission. Several types of transmissive metasurface have been realized, but with either low transmission efficiencies or limited control over polarization and phase. Here, we show a metasurface platform based on high-contrast dielectric elliptical nanoposts that provides complete control of polarization and phase with subwavelength spatial resolution and an experimentally measured efficiency ranging from 72% to 97%, depending on the exact design. Such complete control enables the realization of most free-space transmissive optical elements such as lenses, phase plates, wave plates, polarizers, beamsplitters, as well as polarization-switchable phase holograms and arbitrary vector beam generators using the same metamaterial platform.

Subwavelength-thick lenses with high numerical apertures and large efficiency based on high-contrast transmitarrays

Flat optical devices thinner than a wavelength promise to replace conventional free-space components for wavefront and polarization control. Transmissive flat lenses are particularly interesting for applications in imaging and on-chip optoelectronic integration. Several designs based on plasmonic metasurfaces, high-contrast transmitarrays and gratings have been recently implemented but have not provided a performance comparable to conventional curved lenses. Here we report polarization-insensitive, micron-thick, high-contrast transmitarray micro-lenses with focal spots as small as 0.57 λ. The measured focusing efficiency is up to 82%. A rigorous method for ultrathin lens design, and the trade-off between high efficiency and small spot size (or large numerical aperture) are discussed. The micro-lenses, composed of silicon nano-posts on glass, are fabricated in one lithographic step that could be performed with high-throughput photo or nanoimprint lithography, thus enabling widespread adoption.

Multiwavelength polarization-insensitive lenses based on dielectric metasurfaces with meta-molecules

Metasurfaces are nano-structured devices composed of arrays of subwavelength scatterers (or meta-atoms) that manipulate the wavefront, polarization, or intensity of light. Like other diffractive optical devices, metasurfaces suffer from significant chromatic aberrations that limit their bandwidth. Here, we present a method for designing multiwavelength metasurfaces using unit cells with multiple meta-atoms, or meta-molecules. Transmissive lenses with efficiencies as high as 72% and numerical apertures as high as 0.46 simultaneously operating at 915 nm and 1550 nm are demonstrated. With proper scaling, these devices can be used in applications where operation at distinct known wavelengths is required, like various fluorescence microscopy techniques.

Miniature optical planar camera based on a wide-angle metasurface doublet corrected for monochromatic aberrations

Optical metasurfaces are two-dimensional arrays of nano-scatterers that modify optical wavefronts at subwavelength spatial resolution. They are poised to revolutionize optics by enabling complex low-cost systems where multiple metasurfaces are lithographically stacked and integrated with electronics. For imaging applications, metasurface stacks can perform sophisticated image corrections and can be directly integrated with image sensors. Here we demonstrate this concept with a miniature flat camera integrating a monolithic metasurface lens doublet corrected for monochromatic aberrations, and an image sensor. The doublet lens, which acts as a fisheye photographic objective, has a small f-number of 0.9, an angle-of-view larger than 60° × 60°, and operates at 850 nm wavelength with 70% focusing efficiency. The camera exhibits nearly diffraction-limited image quality, which indicates the potential of this technology in the development of optical systems for microscopy, photography, and computer vision.

Controlling the sign of chromatic dispersion in diffractive optics with dielectric metasurfaces

Diffraction gratings disperse light in a rainbow of colors with the opposite order than refractive prisms, a phenomenon known as negative dispersion [1, 2]. While refractive dispersion can be controlled via material refractive index, diffractive dispersion is fundamentally an interference effect dictated by geometry. Here we show that this fundamental property can be altered using dielectric metasurfaces [3-5], and we experimentally demonstrate diffractive gratings and focusing mirrors with positive, zero, and hyper negative dispersion. These optical elements are implemented using a reflective metasurface composed of dielectric nano-posts that provide simultaneous control over phase and its wavelength derivative. In addition, as a first practical application, we demonstrate a focusing mirror that exhibits a five fold reduction in chromatic dispersion, and thus an almost three times increase in operation bandwidth compared to a regular diffractive element. This concept challenges the generally accepted dispersive properties of diffractive optical devices and extends their applications and functionalities.

Multiwavelength metasurfaces through spatial multiplexing.

Metasurfaces are two-dimensional arrangements of optical scatterers rationally arranged to control optical wavefronts. Despite the significant advances made in wavefront engineering through metasurfaces, most of these devices are designed for and operate at a single wavelength. Here we show that spatial multiplexing schemes can be applied to increase the number of operation wavelengths. We use a high contrast dielectric transmittarray platform with amorphous silicon nano-posts to demonstrate polarization insensitive metasurface lenses with a numerical aperture of 0.46, that focus light at 915 and 1550 nm to the same focal distance. We investigate two different methods, one based on large scale segmentation and one on meta-atom interleaving, and compare their performances. An important feature of this method is its simple generalization to adding more wavelengths or new functionalities to a device. Therefore, it provides a relatively straightforward method for achieving multi-functional and multiwavelength metasurface devices.

Efficient dielectric metasurface collimating lenses for mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers.

Light emitted from single-mode semiconductor lasers generally has large divergence angles, and high numerical aperture lenses are required for beam collimation. Visible and near infrared lasers are collimated using aspheric glass or plastic lenses, yet collimation of mid-infrared quantum cascade lasers typically requires more costly aspheric lenses made of germanium, chalcogenide compounds, or other infrared-transparent materials. Here we report mid-infrared dielectric metasurface flat lenses that efficiently collimate the output beam of single-mode quantum cascade lasers. The metasurface lenses are composed of amorphous silicon posts on a flat sapphire substrate and can be fabricated at low cost using a single step conventional UV binary lithography. Mid-infrared radiation from a 4.8 μm distributed-feedback quantum cascade laser is collimated using a polarization insensitive metasurface lens with 0.86 numerical aperture and 79% transmission efficiency. The collimated beam has a half divergence angle of 0.36° and beam quality factor of M2=1.02.

High efficiency double-wavelength dielectric metasurface lenses with dichroic birefringent meta-atoms.

Metasurfaces are ultrathin optical structures that manipulate optical wavefronts. Most metasurface devices which deflect light are designed for operation at a single wavelength, and their function changes as the wavelength is varied. Here we propose and demonstrate a double-wavelength metasurface based on polarization dependent dielectric meta-atoms that control the phases of two orthogonal polarizations independently. Using this platform, we design lenses that focus light at 915 and 780 nm with perpendicular linear polarizations to the same focal distance. Lenses with numerical apertures up to 0.7 and efficiencies from 65% to above 90% are demonstrated. In addition to the high efficiency and numerical aperture, an important feature of this technique is that the two operation wavelengths can be chosen to be arbitrarily close. These characteristics make these lenses especially attractive for fluorescence microscopy applications.

Visible Wavelength Color Filters Using Dielectric Subwavelength Gratings for Backside-Illuminated CMOS Image Sensor Technologies

We report transmissive color filters based on subwavelength dielectric gratings that can replace conventional dye-based color filters used in backside-illuminated CMOS image sensor (BSI CIS) technologies. The filters are patterned in an 80 nm-thick poly silicon film on a 115 nm-thick SiO2 spacer layer. They are optimized for operating at the primary RGB colors, exhibit peak transmittance of 60-80%, and have an almost insensitive response over a ± 20° angular range. This technology enables shrinking of the pixel sizes down to near a micrometer.

High resolution on-chip optical filter array based on double subwavelength grating reflectors

An optical filter array consisting of vertical narrow-band Fabry-Pérot (FP) resonators formed by two highly reflective high contrast subwavelength grating mirrors is reported. The filters are designed to cover a wide range of operation wavelengths (Δλ/λ = 5%) just by changing the in-plane grating parameters while the device thickness is maintained constant. Operation in the telecom band with transmission efficiencies greater than 40% and quality factors greater than 1,000 are measured experimentally for filters fabricated on the same substrate.