Aberration-free ultra-thin flat lenses and axicons at telecom wavelengths based on plasmonic metasurfaces

TL;DR

This paper presents the design and demonstration of ultra-thin, aberration-free flat lenses and axicons at telecom wavelengths using plasmonic metasurfaces with phased nanoantenna arrays, enabling advanced optical functionalities.

Contribution

The work introduces a novel approach to create aberration-free flat lenses and axicons based on phase discontinuities with ultrathin plasmonic metasurfaces, applicable to high NA optics.

Findings

Successfully designed aberration-free flat lenses and axicons at telecom wavelengths

Demonstrated spherical wavefront and Bessel beam generation

Simulations show potential for high NA flat microscope objectives

Abstract

The concept of optical phase discontinuities is applied to the design and demonstration of aberration-free planar lenses and axicons, comprising a phased array of ultrathin subwavelength spaced optical antennas. The lenses and axicons consist of radial distributions of V-shaped nanoantennas that generate respectively spherical wavefronts and non-diffracting Bessel beams at telecom wavelengths. Simulations are also presented to show that our aberration-free designs are applicable to high numerical aperture lenses such as flat microscope objectives.