Metalenses at visible wavelengths: past, present, perspectives

The so-called ‘flat optics’ that shape the amplitude and phase of light with high spatial resolution are presently receiving considerable attention. Numerous journal publications seemingly offer hope for great promises for ultra-flat metalenses with high efficiency, high numerical aperture, broadband operation… We temperate the expectation by referring to the current status of metalenses against their historical background, assessing the technical and scientific challenges recently solved and critically identifying those that still stand in the way.

[1]  Erez Hasman,et al.  Dielectric gradient metasurface optical elements , 2014, Science.

[2]  Timothy J. Drabik,et al.  Optimized binary, phase-only, diffractive optical element with subwavelength features for 1.55 μm , 1995 .

[3]  G. A. Vawter,et al.  High-efficiency subwavelength diffractive optical element in GaAs for 975 nm. , 1995, Optics letters.

[4]  M. T. Gale.  Replication techniques for diffractive optical elements , 1997 .

[5]  Johannes Schwider,et al.  Infrared optical components based on a microrelief structure , 1994 .

[6]  Edmond Cambril,et al.  Imaging with blazed-binary diffractive elements , 2002 .

[7]  Hideki Ogawa,et al.  Research on multi-layer diffractive optical elements and their application to camera lenses , 2002 .

[8]  Andrei Faraon,et al.  Removing Orientation-Induced Localization Biases in Single-Molecule Microscopy Using a Broadband Metasurface Mask , 2016, Nature Photonics.

[9]  Erich Spitz,et al.  Photolithographic fabrication of thin film lenses , 1972 .

[10]  Yuri S. Kivshar,et al.  High‐Efficiency Dielectric Huygens’ Surfaces , 2015 .

[11]  Federico Capasso,et al.  Achromatic Metasurface Lens at Telecommunication Wavelengths. , 2015, Nano letters.

[12]  W. E. Kock,et al.  Metallic delay lenses , 1948, Bell Syst. Tech. J..

[13]  Andrei Faraon,et al.  Miniature optical planar camera based on a wide-angle metasurface doublet corrected for monochromatic aberrations , 2016, Nature Communications.

[14]  P. Chavel,et al.  Optical properties of deep lamellar Gratings: A coupled Bloch-mode insight , 2006, Journal of Lightwave Technology.

[15]  E Popov,et al.  Grating theory: new equations in Fourier space leading to fast converging results for TM polarization. , 2000, Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.

[16]  G. Swanson.  Binary Optics Technology: The Theory and Design of Multi-Level Diffractive Optical Elements , 1989 .

[17]  Zhen Peng,et al.  Flat dielectric grating reflectors with focusing abilities , 2010, 1001.3711.

[18]  H. Craighead,et al.  Diffractive phase elements based on two-dimensional artificial dielectrics. , 1995, Optics letters.

[19]  Vladimir M. Shalaev,et al.  Metal nanoslit lenses with polarization-selective design. , 2011, Optics letters.

[20]  Philippe Lalanne,et al.  Design and fabrication of blazed binary diffractive elements with sampling periods smaller than the structural cutoff , 1999 .

[21]  P. Chavel,et al.  Synthesis of a subwavelength-pulse-width spatially modulated array illuminator for 0.633 microm. , 1996, Optics letters.

[22]  E. Kley,et al.  High performance diffraction gratings made by e-beam lithography , 2011 .

[23]  H. Kikuta,et al.  Achromatic quarter-wave plates using the dispersion of form birefringence. , 1997, Applied optics.

[24]  Andrei Faraon,et al.  Fundamental limits of ultrathin metasurfaces , 2014, Scientific Reports.

[25]  H. Craighead,et al.  Diffractive lens fabricated with mostly zeroth-order gratings. , 1996, Optics letters.

[26]  J. Aizpurua,et al.  Antenna resonances in low aspect ratio semiconductor nanowires. , 2015, Optics express.

[27]  Qiaofeng Tan,et al.  Helicity dependent directional surface plasmon polariton excitation using a metasurface with interfacial phase discontinuity , 2013, Light: Science & Applications.

[28]  S. Cassette,et al.  Broadband and Efficient Diffraction , 2013 .

[29]  Ye Feng Yu,et al.  High‐transmission dielectric metasurface with 2π phase control at visible wavelengths , 2015 .

[30]  Arka Majumdar,et al.  Low contrast dielectric metasurface optics , 2016, 2016 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO).

[31]  Marco Fiorentino,et al.  Sub-Wavelength Grating Lenses With a Twist , 2014, IEEE Photonics Technology Letters.

[32]  W Stork,et al.  Artificial distributed-index media fabricated by zero-order gratings. , 1991, Optics letters.

[33]  Philippe Lalanne,et al.  Waveguiding in blazed-binary diffractive elements , 1999 .

[34]  Harald Giessen,et al.  Two-photon direct laser writing of ultracompact multi-lens objectives , 2016, Nature Photonics.

[35]  N. Yu,et al.  Light Propagation with Phase Discontinuities: Generalized Laws of Reflection and Refraction , 2011, Science.

[36]  Ai Qun Liu,et al.  High-efficiency broadband meta-hologram with polarization-controlled dual images. , 2014, Nano letters.

[37]  A. Arbabi,et al.  Subwavelength-thick lenses with high numerical apertures and large efficiency based on high-contrast transmitarrays , 2014, Nature Communications.

[38]  B. Luk’yanchuk,et al.  Optically resonant dielectric nanostructures , 2016, Science.

[39]  M W Farn,et al.  Binary gratings with increased efficiency. , 1992, Applied optics.

[40]  W. T. Chen,et al.  Metalenses at visible wavelengths: Diffraction-limited focusing and subwavelength resolution imaging , 2016, Science.

[41]  P. Chavel,et al.  Blazed binary subwavelength gratings with efficiencies larger than those of conventional échelette gratings. , 1998, Optics letters.

[42]  Erez Hasman,et al.  Polarization dependent focusing lens by use of quantized Pancharatnam–Berry phase diffractive optics , 2003 .

[43]  Carsten Rockstuhl,et al.  Relating localized nanoparticle resonances to an associated antenna problem , 2010, 1010.2972.

[44]  D. Berry,et al.  The reflectarray antenna , 1963 .

[45]  N. Engheta,et al.  Traditional and emerging materials for optical metasurfaces , 2017 .

[46]  P. Genevet,et al.  Recent advances in planar optics: from plasmonic to dielectric metasurfaces , 2017 .