# Metalens formed by structured arrays of atomic emitters

## TL;DR

This paper explores using arrays of atomic emitters to create efficient, robust metalenses with complex optical functions.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a novel method to design metalenses using structured arrays of atomic emitters with tailored lattice constants.

## Key findings

- Structured arrays of atomic emitters can achieve large transmission with arbitrary phase shifts.
- The collective response enhances robustness against losses in the atomic metalens.
- Large-scale simulations with N ∼ 5 × 10⁵ atoms demonstrate the feasibility of the design.

## Abstract

Arrays of atomic emitters have proven to be a promising platform to manipulate and engineer optical properties, due to their efficient cooperative response to near-resonant light. Here, we theoretically investigate their use as an efficient metalens. We show that, by spatially tailoring the (subwavelength) lattice constants of three consecutive two-dimensional arrays of identical atomic emitters, one can realize a large transmission coefficient with arbitrary position-dependent phase shift, whose robustness against losses is enhanced by the collective response. To characterize the efficiency of this atomic metalens, we perform large-scale numerical simulations involving a substantial number of atoms (N ∼ 5 × 105) that is considerably larger than comparable works. Our results suggest that low-loss, robust optical devices with complex functionalities, ranging from metasurfaces to computer-generated holograms, could be potentially assembled from properly engineered arrays of atomic emitters.