MEMS-tunable dielectric metasurface lens using thin-film PZT for large displacements at low voltages

TL;DR

This paper introduces a MEMS-tunable dielectric metasurface lens using thin-film PZT, achieving large displacements at low voltages, enabling compact, fast, and efficient varifocal optical components.

Contribution

First demonstration of a movable metasurface lens actuated by integrated thin-film PZT MEMS with large displacements at low voltages.

Findings

Achieved 7.2 μm out-of-plane displacement at 23V.

Displacement is roughly twice that of existing electrostatic metasurface actuators.

Demonstrated a varifocal lens with 250 μm focal shift at 1.55 μm wavelength.

Abstract

Tunable focusing is a desired property in a wide range of optical imaging and sensing technologies but has tended to require bulky components which cannot be integrated on-chip and have slow actuation speeds. Recently, integration of metasurfaces into electrostatic MEMS architectures has shown potential to overcome these challenges, but has offered limited out of plane displacement range while requiring large voltages. We demonstrate for the first time a movable metasurface lens actuated by integrated thin-film PZT MEMS, which has the advantage of offering large displacements at low voltages. An out of plane displacement of a metasurface in the range of 7.2 um is demonstrated under a voltage application of 23V. This is roughly twice the displacement at a quarter of the voltage of state of the art electrostatic out of plane actuation of metasurfaces. Utilizing this tunability we demonstrate a varifocal lens doublet with a focal shift on the order of 250um at the wavelength 1.55um. Thin-film PZT MEMS-metasurfaces is a promising platform for miniaturized varifocal components.