Large Area Metalenses: Design, Characterization, and Mass Manufacturing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the design, fabrication, and characterization of large-area metalenses using scalable metasurface layout algorithms and semiconductor manufacturing techniques, enabling high-quality imaging with centimeter-scale lenses.

Contribution

It introduces a scalable layout compression algorithm and mass manufacturing process for large-area metalenses, bridging semiconductor tech and optical component fabrication.

Findings

Successful fabrication of centimeter-scale metalenses

Demonstration of diffraction-limited focusing

Implementation of the ideal thin lens equation

Abstract

Optical components, such as lenses, have traditionally been made in the bulk form by shaping glass or other transparent materials. Recent advances in metasurfaces provide a new basis for recasting optical components into thin, planar elements, having similar or better performance using arrays of subwavelength-spaced optical phase-shifters. The technology required to mass produce them dates back to the mid-1990s, when the feature sizes of semiconductor manufacturing became considerably denser than the wavelength of light, advancing in stride with Moore's law. This provides the possibility of unifying two industries: semiconductor manufacturing and lens-making, whereby the same technology used to make computer chips is used to make optical components, such as lenses, based on metasurfaces. Using a scalable metasurface layout compression algorithm that exponentially reduces design file sizes (by 3 orders of magnitude for a centimeter diameter lens) and stepper photolithography, we show the design and fabrication of metasurface lenses (metalenses) with extremely large areas, up to centimeters in diameter and beyond. Using a single two-centimeter diameter near-infrared metalens less than a micron thick fabricated in this way, we experimentally implement the ideal thin lens equation, while demonstrating high-quality imaging and diffraction-limited focusing.