High-Transmittance Broadband Flat Lens Metasurface

Metasurface-based flat lens technology provides dramatic reductions in size and weight compared with traditional refractive optics. Flat lenses based on microfabricated metasurfaces can focus light using gradient phase modulation provided by spatially varying engineered features that are smaller than the optical wavelength. Optical aberrations can be minimized by microfabricating a precise gradient phase-shift pattern across a flat lens to focus incident light to a near-diffraction-limited image. Nanohmics, Inc., proposes to develop ultrathin, light-weight, high-transmittance, broadband visible band flat lenses based on microfabricated gradient metasurfaces. Because of their extremely low size and mass, these precise, low-aberration flat lens optics will be ideal for applications in aircraft and satellites. In Phase I, Nanohmics developed metasurfaces based on resonant sub-wavelength dielectric nanostructures that maximize transmittance and expand the effective bandwidth of flat lenses. Nanohmics successfully demonstrated their feasibility for miniaturization of optics for imaging and sensor instruments. The proposed flat lens metasurface prototype comprises an engineered array of highly efficient resonant nanostructures that are fabricated using standard materials and CMOS microfabrication techniques to reduce costs and provide a rapid route to commercialization for flat lenses and other light-weight optics.