Ultra-thin Tunable Optomechanical Metalens

TL;DR

This paper presents an ultra-thin, tunable metalens that can rapidly change its focal length via optomechanical control, offering a compact and fast reconfigurable photonic device.

Contribution

It introduces a novel ultra-thin metalens with fast, moderate-intensity optomechanical tunability, advancing reconfigurable metasurface technology.

Findings

Focal length can be tuned by over 5%

Response time is approximately 10 microseconds

Achieved tunability with moderate continuous wave intensities

Abstract

Reconfigurable metasurfaces offer great promises to enhance photonics technology by combining integration with improved functionalities. Recently, reconfigurability in otherwise static metasurfaces has been achieved by modifying the electric permittivity of the meta-atoms themselves or their immediate surrounding. Yet, it remains challenging to achieve significant and fast tunability without increasing bulkiness. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-thin tunable metalens whose focal distance can be changed through optomechanical control with moderate continuous wave intensities. We achieve fast focal length changes of more than 5% with response time of the order of 10$\mu$s