Large‐Field‐of‐View Wide‐Spectrum Artificial Reflecting Superposition Compound Eyes

In nature, reflecting superposition compound eyes (RSCEs) found in shrimps, lobsters and some other decapods are extraordinary imaging systems with numerous optical features such as minimum chromatic aberration, wide‐angle field of view (FOV), high sensitivity to light and superb acuity to motion. Here, we present life‐sized, large‐FOV, wide‐spectrum artificial RSCEs as optical imaging devices inspired by the unique designs of their natural counterparts. Our devices can form real, clear images based on reflection rather than refraction, hence avoiding chromatic aberration due to dispersion by the optical materials. Compared to imaging at visible wavelengths using conventional refractive lenses of comparable size, our artificial RSCEs demonstrate minimum chromatic aberration, exceptional FOV up to 165° without distortion, modest aberrations and comparable imaging quality without any post‐image processing. Together with an augmenting cruciform pattern surrounding each focused image, our large‐FOV, wide‐spectrum artificial RSCEs possess enhanced motion‐tracking capability ideal for diverse applications in military, security, medical imaging and astronomy.     

All‐Silicon Broadband Ultraviolet Metasurfaces

Featuring high photon energy and short wavelength, ultraviolet (UV) light enables numerous applications such as high‐resolution imaging, photolithography, and sensing. In order to manipulate UV light, bulky optics are usually required, and hence do not meet the fast‐growing requirements of integration in compact systems. Recently, metasurfaces have shown unprecedented control of light, enabling substantial miniaturization of photonic devices from terahertz to visible regions. However, material challenges have hampered the realization of such functionalities at shorter wavelengths. Herein, it is experimentally demonstrated that all‐silicon (Si) metasurfaces with thicknesses of only one‐tenth of the working wavelength can be designed and fabricated to manipulate broadband UV light with efficiencies comparable to plasmonic metasurface performance in infrared (IR). Also, for the first time, photolithography enabled by metasurface‐generated UV holograms is shown. Such performance enhancement is attributed to increased scattering cross sections of Si antennas in the UV range, which is adequately modeled via a circuit. The new platform introduced here will deepen the understanding of light–matter interactions and introduce even more material options to broadband metaphotonic applications, including those in integrated photonics and holographic lithography technologies.     

Embedded Metal Oxide Plasmonics Using Local Plasma Oxidation of AZO for Planar Metasurfaces

New methods for achieving high-quality conducting oxide metasurfaces are of great importance for a range of emerging applications from infrared thermal control coatings to epsilon-near-zero nonlinear optics. This work demonstrates the viability of plasma patterning as a technique to selectively and locally modulate the carrier density in planar Al-doped ZnO (AZO) metasurfaces without any associated topographical surface profile. This technique stands in strong contrast to conventional physical patterning which results in nonplanar textured surfaces. The approach can open up a new route to form novel photonic devices with planar metasurfaces, for example, antireflective coatings and multi-layer devices. To demonstrate the performance of the carrier-modulated AZO metasurfaces, two types of devices are realized using the demonstrated plasma patterning. A metasurface optical solar reflector is shown to produce infrared emissivity equivalent to a conventional etched design. Second, a multiband metasurface is achieved by integrating a Au visible-range metasurface on top of the planar AZO infrared metasurface. Independent control of spectral bands without significant cross-talk between infrared and visible functionalities is achieved. Local carrier tuning of conducting oxide films offers a conceptually new approach for oxide-based photonics and nanoelectronics and opens up new routes for integrated planar metasurfaces in optical technology.     

Metasurface Enabled Wide‐Angle Fourier Lens

Fourier optics, the principle of using Fourier transformation to understand the functionalities of optical elements, lies at the heart of modern optics, and it has been widely applied to optical information processing, imaging, holography, etc. While a simple thin lens is capable of resolving Fourier components of an arbitrary optical wavefront, its operation is limited to near normal light incidence, i.e., the paraxial approximation, which puts a severe constraint on the resolvable Fourier domain. As a result, high‐order Fourier components are lost, resulting in extinction of high‐resolution information of an image. Other high numerical aperture Fourier lenses usually suffer from the bulky size and costly designs. Here, a dielectric metasurface consisting of high‐aspect‐ratio silicon waveguide array is demonstrated experimentally, which is capable of performing 1D Fourier transform for a large incident angle range and a broad operating bandwidth. Thus, the device significantly expands the operational Fourier space, benefitting from the large numerical aperture and negligible angular dispersion at large incident angles. The Fourier metasurface will not only facilitate efficient manipulation of spatial spectrum of free‐space optical wavefront, but also be readily integrated into micro‐optical platforms due to its compact size.     

Energy‐Tailorable Spin‐Selective Multifunctional Metasurfaces with Full Fourier Components

Compact integrated multifunctional metasurface that can deal with concurrent tasks represent one of the most profound research fields in modern optics. Such integration is expected to have a striking impact on minimized optical systems in applications such as optical communication and computation. However, arbitrary multifunctional spin‐selective design with precise energy configuration in each channel is still a challenge, and suffers from intrinsic noise and complex designs. Here, a design principle is proposed to realize energy tailorable multifunctional metasurfaces, in which the functionalities can be arbitrarily designed if the channels have no or weak interference in k‐space. A design strategy is demostrated here with high‐efficiency dielectric nanopillars that can modulate full Fourier components of the optical field. The spin‐selective behavior of the dielectric metasurfaces is also investigated, which originates from the group effect introduced by numerous nanopillar arrays. This approach provides straightforward rules to control the functionality channels in the integrated metasurfaces, and paves the way for efficient concurrent optical communication.     

Anamorphic white light Fourier processor with holographic lenses

Two anamorphic and achromatic Fourier processors were designed and constructed using diffractive and refractive cylindrical lenses. The diffractive lenses are holographic lenses recorded on silver halide material. In both processors the achromatic one-dimensional Fourier transform plane was obtained with two holographic lenses and one refractive cylindrical lens. The image with the same magnification in both directions at the output plane was formed with two different combinations of lenses. The differences between the two processors are analyzed, and in both cases the chromatic aberration in the Fourier plane and in the output plane is evaluated. Even though single cylindrical refractive lenses were used to image in one direction, good results were obtained.     

Quasicrystal Photonic Metasurfaces for Radiation Controlling of Second Harmonic Generation

Photonic metasurfaces, a kind of 2D structured medium, represent a novel platform to manipulate the propagation of light at subwavelength scale. In linear optical regime, many interesting topics such as planar meta‐lenses, metasurface optical holography, and so on have been widely investigated. Recently, metasurfaces have gone into the nonlinear optical regime. While it is recognized that the local symmetry of the meta‐atoms plays a vital role in determining the polarization, phase, and intensity of the nonlinear waves, much less attention has been paid to the global symmetry of the nonlinear metasurfaces. According to the Penrose tiling and the newly proposed hexagonal quasicrystalline tiling, nonlinear optical quasicrystal metasurfaces are designed and fabricated based on the geometric‐phase‐controlled plasmonic meta‐atoms with local rotational symmetry. It is found that the far‐field radiation behavior of second harmonic generation waves are determined by both the tiling schemes of quasicrystal metasurfaces and the local symmetry of meta‐atoms they consist of. The proposed concept may open new avenues for designing nonlinear optical sources with metasurface crystals.     

Ultrathin Planar Cavity Metasurfaces

An ultrathin planar cavity metasurface is proposed based on ultrathin film interference and its practicability for light manipulation in visible region is experimentally demonstrated. Phase of reflected light is modulated by finely adjusting the thickness of amorphous silicon (a‐Si) by a few nanometers on an aluminum (Al) substrate via nontrivial phase shifts at the interfaces and interference of multireflections generated from the planar cavity. A phase shift of π, the basic requirement for two‐level phase metasurface systems, can be accomplished with an 8 nm thick difference. For proof of concept, gradient metasurfaces for beam deflection, Fresnel zone plate metalens for light focusing, and metaholograms for image reconstruction are presented, demonstrating polarization‐independent and broadband characteristics. This novel mechanism for phase modulation with ultrathin planar cavity provides diverse routes to construct advanced flat optical devices with versatile applications.     

Planar Diffractive Lenses: Fundamentals,Functionalities, and Applications

Traditional objective lenses in modern microscopy, based on the refraction of light, are restricted by the Rayleigh diffraction limit. The existing methods to overcome this limit can be categorized into near‐field (e.g., scanning near‐field optical microscopy, superlens, microsphere lens) and far‐field (e.g., stimulated emission depletion microscopy, photoactivated localization microscopy, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy) approaches. However, they either operate in the challenging near‐field mode or there is the need to label samples in biology. Recently, through manipulation of the diffraction of light with binary masks or gradient metasurfaces, some miniaturized and planar lenses have been reported with intriguing functionalities such as ultrahigh numerical aperture, large depth of focus, and subdiffraction‐limit focusing in far‐field, which provides a viable solution for the label‐free superresolution imaging. Here, the recent advances in planar diffractive lenses (PDLs) are reviewed from a united theoretical account on diffraction‐based focusing optics, and the underlying physics of nanofocusing via constructive or destructive interference is revealed. Various approaches of realizing PDLs are introduced in terms of their unique performances and interpreted by using optical aberration theory. Furthermore, a detailed tutorial about applying these planar lenses in nanoimaging is provided, followed by an outlook regarding future development toward practical applications.     

Chromatic Dispersion Manipulation Based on Metalenses

Metasurfaces are 2D metamaterials composed of subwavelength nanoantennas according to specific design. They have been utilized to precisely manipulate various parameters of light fields, such as phase, polarization, amplitude, etc., showing promising functionalities. Among all meta-devices, the metalens can be considered as the most basic and important application, given its significant advantage in integration and miniaturization compared with traditional lenses. However, the resonant dispersion of each nanoantenna in a metalens and the intrinsic chromatic dispersion of planar devices and optical materials result in a large chromatic aberration in metalenses that severely reduces the quality of their focusing and imaging. Consequently, how to effectively suppress or manipulate the chromatic aberration of metalenses has attracted worldwide attention in the last few years, leading to variety of excellent achievements promoting the development of this field. Herein, recent progress in chromatic dispersion control based on metalenses is reviewed.     

Multispectral imaging axicons

Large-aperture linear diffractive axicons are optical devices providing achromatic nondiffracting beams with an extended depth of focus when illuminated by white light sources. Annular apertures introduce chromatic foci separation, making chromatic imaging possible despite important radiometric losses. Recently, a new type of diffractive axicon has been introduced, by multiplexing concentric annular axicons with appropriate sizes and periods, called a multiple annular linear diffractive axicon (MALDA). This new family of conical optics combines multiple annular axicons in different ways to optimize color foci recombination, separation, or interleaving. We present different types of MALDA, give an experimental illustration of the use of these devices, and describe the manufacturing issues related to their fabrication to provide color imaging systems with long focal depths and good diffraction efficiency. Application to multispectral image analysis is discussed.     

Imaging through Nonlinear Metalens Using Second Harmonic Generation

The abrupt phase change of light at metasurfaces provides high flexibility in wave manipulation without the need for accumulation of propagating phase through dispersive materials. In the linear optical regime, one important application field of metasurfaces is imaging by planar metalenses, which enables device miniaturization and aberration correction compared to conventional optical microlens systems. With the incorporation of nonlinear responses into passive metasurfaces, optical functionalities of metalenses are anticipated to be further enriched, leading to completely new application areas. Here, imaging with nonlinear metalenses that combine the function of an ultrathin planar lens with simultaneous frequency conversion is demonstrated. With such nonlinear metalenses, imaging of objects with near infrared light while the image appears in the second harmonic signal of visible frequency range is experimentally demonstrated. Furthermore, the functionality of these nonlinear metalenses can be modified by switching the handedness of the circularly polarized fundamental wave, leading to either real or virtual nonlinear image formation. Nonlinear metalenses not only enable infrared light imaging through a visible detector but also have the ability to modulate nonlinear optical responses through an ultrathin metasurface device while the fundamental wave remains unaffected, which offers the capability of nonlinear information processing with novel optoelectronic devices.     

Chromatic aberrations of radial gradient-index lenses. II. Selfoc lenses

Simple equations used for analyzing chromatic aberrations of Selfoc lenses were derived in terms of Buchdahl chromatic coordinates and Buchdahl dispersion constants. The equations that employ gradient-index chromatic constants Ψ(1) and Ψ(2) are used for selecting suitable ion-exchange pairs to design an achromatic Selfoc lens.     

Selective color imaging using weighted interleaved multiple annular linear diffractive axicons

Annular linear diffractive axicons are optical devices providing chromatic imaging over an extended depth of focus when illuminated by a white light. To improve their low radiometric performance, multiple annular linear diffractive axicons (MALDAs) have been introduced. Their chromatic properties are well known and constrained by dispersion laws. A first attempt to freely combine colors or wavelength bands has been obtained with interleaved MALDAs (I_MALDAs). However, such optics do not provide a full decoupling between wavelength combination and brightness control required in the CIE color space to address any colors. We present here a new category of I_MALDA providing this capability when illuminated by a white source containing tristimulus (red/green/blue) values. We assess both theoretically and experimentally imaging qualities of such optics with respect to two different interleaving techniques and suggest some potential applications, in particular in the field of anticounterfeit and authentication techniques.     

All‐Dielectric Active Terahertz Photonics Driven by Bound States in the Continuum

The remarkable emergence of all‐dielectric meta‐photonics governed by the physics of high‐index dielectric materials offers a low‐loss platform for efficient manipulation and subwavelength control of electromagnetic waves from microwaves to visible frequencies. Dielectric metasurfaces can focus electromagnetic waves, generate structured beams and vortices, enhance local fields for advanced sensing, and provide novel functionalities for classical and quantum technologies. Recent advances in meta‐photonics are associated with the exploration of exotic electromagnetic modes called the bound states in the continuum (BICs), which offer a simple interference mechanism to achieve large quality factors (Q) through excitation of supercavity modes in dielectric nanostructures and resonant metasurfaces. Here, a BIC‐driven terahertz metasurface with dynamic control of high‐Q silicon supercavities that are reconfigurable at a nanosecond timescale is experimentally demonstrated. It is revealed that such supercavities enable low‐power, optically induced terahertz switching and modulation of sharp resonances for potential applications in lasing, mode multiplexing, and biosensing.     

Hyperspectral Shack-Hartmann test

A hyperspectral Shack-Hartmann test bed has been developed to characterize the performance of miniature optics across a wide spectral range, a necessary first step in developing broadband achromatized all-polymer endomicroscopes. The Shack-Hartmann test bed was used to measure the chromatic focal shift (CFS) of a glass singlet lens and a glass achromatic lens, i.e., lenses representing the extrema of CFS magnitude in polymer elements to be found in endomicroscope systems. The lenses were tested from 500 to 700 nm in 5 and 10 nm steps, respectively. In both cases, we found close agreement between test results obtained from a ZEMAX model of the test bed and test lens and those obtained by experiment (maximum error of 12 μm for the singlet lens and 5 μm for the achromatic triplet lens). Future applications of the hyperspectral Shack-Hartmann test include measurements of aberrations as a function of wavelength, characterization of manufactured plastic endomicroscope elements and systems, and reverse optimization.     

Polarization-Tunable Perovskite Light-Emitting Metatransistor

Emerging immersive visual communication technologies require light sources with complex functionality for dynamic control of polarization, directivity, wavefront, spectrum, and intensity of light. Currently, this is mostly achieved by free space bulk optic elements, limiting the adoption of these technologies. Flat optics based on artificially structured metasurfaces that operate at the sub-wavelength scale are a viable solution, however, their integration into electrically driven devices remains challenging. Here, a radically new approach to monolithic integration of a dielectric metasurface into a perovskite light-emitting transistor is demonstrated. It is shown that nanogratings directly structured on top of the transistor channel yield an 8-fold increase of electroluminescence intensity and dynamic tunability of polarization. This new light-emitting metatransistor device concept opens unlimited opportunities for light management strategies based on metasurface design and integration.     

Fano-Enhanced Circular Dichroism in Deformable Stereo Metasurfaces

2D metasurfaces have emerged as a paradigm-shifting platform for light management with considerable miniaturization and alleviated fabrication challenges than their 3D counterparts. However, the appearance of in-plane mirror symmetry and reduced dimensions impose fundamental restraints to advanced chiroptical responses and reconfiguration capabilities. Here, a new concept of Fano-enhanced circular dichroism by introducing a reconfigurable stereo metasurface, which possesses deformable out-of-plane twists that are readily achieved by a simple nano-kirigami fabrication method, is demonstrated. The stereo height and twisting geometries can be reproducibly controlled, providing a facile and automated fashion to tailor the distinct profiles of Fano resonances under circularly polarized incidence. As a result, a recorded high efficiency of circular dichroism generation per unit sample thickness is achieved with Fano resonances in opposite lineshapes. Leveraging this feature, large-range reconfiguration of circular dichroism at optical wavelengths is demonstrated through reversible compression of the stereo metasurfaces with a fiber tip. The studied stereo metasurface unfolds a new degree of freedom for advanced photonic applications in a quasi-flat optical platform, and the proposed concept of Fano-enhanced circular dichroism opens new venues to explore interesting fundamental phenomena of chiral optics.     

Shine Bright Like a Diamond: New Light on an Old Polymeric Semiconductor

Brilliance usually refers to the light reflected by the facets of a gemstone such as diamond due to its high refractive index. Nowadays, high-refractive-index materials find application in many optical and photonic devices and are mostly of inorganic nature. However, these materials are usually obtained by toxic or expensive production processes. Herein, the synthesis of a thin-film organic semiconductor, namely, polymeric carbon nitride, by thermal chemical vapor deposition is presented. Among polymers, this organic material combines the highest intrinsic refractive index reported so far with high transparency in the visible spectrum, even reaching the range of diamond. Eventually, the herein presented deposition of high quality thin films and their optical characteristics open the way for numerous new applications and devices in optics, photonics, and beyond based on organic materials.     

0.2 λ0 Thick Adaptive Retroreflector Made of Spin‐Locked Metasurface

The metasurface concept is employed to planarize retroflectors by stacking two metasurfaces with separation that is two orders larger than the wavelength. Here, a retroreflective metasurface using subwavelength‐thick reconfigurable C‐shaped resonators (RCRs) is reported, which reduces the overall thickness from the previous record of 590 λ₀ down to only 0.2 λ₀. The geometry of RCRs could be in situ controlled to realize equal amplitude and phase modulation onto transverse magnetic (TM)‐polarized and transverse electric (TE)‐polarized incidences. With the phase gradient being engineered, an in‐plane momentum could be imparted to the incident wave, guaranteeing the spin state of the retro‐reflected wave identical to that of the incident light. Such spin‐locked metasurface is natively adaptive toward different incident angles to realize retroreflection by mechanically altering the geometry of RCRs. As a proof of concept, an ultrathin retroreflective metasurface is validated at 15 GHz, under various illumination angles at 10°, 12°, 15°, and 20°. Such adaptive spin‐locked metasurface could find promising applications in spin‐based optical devices, communication systems, remote sensing, RCS enhancement, and so on.