Large-area, high-NA Multi-level Diffractive Lens via inverse design

TL;DR

This paper presents an inverse design method to create large-area, high-NA multi-level diffractive lenses that are thin, lightweight, and cost-effective to produce, advancing flat lens technology.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel inverse design approach to fabricate large-area, high-NA multi-level diffractive lenses with sub-1.35μm thickness, enabling scalable and affordable flat lens manufacturing.

Findings

Achieved a lens with NA=0.9 at 850nm wavelength

Lens diameter of 4.13mm and thickness less than 1.35μm

Cost-effective replication via imprint lithography

Abstract

Flat lenses enable thinner, lighter, and simpler imaging systems. However, large-area and high-NA flat lenses have been elusive due to computational and fabrication challenges. Here, we applied inverse design to create a multi-level diffractive lens (MDL) with thickness <1.35{\mu}m, diameter of 4.13mm, NA=0.9 at wavelength of 850nm. Since the MDL is created in polymer, it can be cost-effectively replicated via imprint lithography.