Recently, the multilevel diffractive lenses (MDLs) have attracted considerable attention mainly due to their superior wave focusing performance; however, efforts to correct the chromatic aberration are still in progress. Here, we demonstrate the numerical design and experimental demonstration of high-numerical aperture (NA) (~0.99), diffraction-limited achromatic multilevel diffractive lens (AMDL) operating in microwave range 10 GHz-14 GHz. A multi-objective differential evolution (MO-DE) algorithm is incorporated with the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (3D FDTD) method to optimize both the heights and widths of each concentric ring (zone) of the AMDL structure. In this study, the desired focal distance ( d F  ) is treated as an optimization parameter in addition to the structural parameters of the zones for the first time. In other words, MO-DE diminishes the necessity of predetermined focal distance and center wavelength by also providing an alternative method for phase profile tailoring. The proposed AMDL can be considered as an ultra-compact, the radius is 3.7 c  where c  is the center wavelength (i.e., 12 GHz frequency), and flat lens which has a thickness of . c The numerically calculated full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) values are below 0.554λ and focusing efficiency values are varying between 28% and 45.5%. To experimentally demonstrate the functionality of the optimized lens, the AMDL composing of polylactic acid material (PLA) polymer is fabricated via 3D-printing technology. The numerical and experimental results are compared, discussed in detail and a good agreement between them is observed. Moreover, the verified AMDL in microwave regime is scaled down to the visible wavelengths to observe achromatic and diffraction-limited focusing behavior between 380 nm -620 nm wavelengths.

No abstract

No abstract

In this study, we present the numerical design and experimental demonstration of an all-dielectric low refractive index polarization-insensitive multilevel diffractive lens (MDL) at microwave frequencies. The proposed MDL structure is composed of concentric rings (zones) having different widths and heights. Here, the heights and widths of each dielectric concentric rings of lens structure are optimized by using the differential evolution (DE) algorithm to obtain the desired polarization-insensitive focusing performance. The DE method is incorporated with the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method to design an MDL structure and evaluate its wave focusing ability. The design frequency is fixed to 10 GHz and, at the design frequency, the DE method is applied to achieve light focusing with the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) values of 0.654λ and 0.731λ for transverse-magnetic (TM) and transverse-electric (TE) polarizations, respectively, where λ is the wavelength of incident light in free space. Moreover, focusing efficiencies and numerical apertures are calculated as 60.3% and 0.853 at the design frequency, respectively, for both polarizations. Besides, experimental verifications of the numerical results are carried out in microwave regime where the MDL design is fabricated by 3D printing technology by using a polylactic acid material. In the microwave experiments, MDL focuses the TM and TE polarized waves at the focal distances of 71.82 mm and 69.3 mm with the FWHM values of 0.701λ and 0.887λ, respectively. We believe that the proposed design approach can be further expanded to design low refractive index lenses for visible and near-infrared wavelengths.

The computational inverse design has paved the way for the design of highly efficient, compact, and novel nanophotonic structures beyond human intuition and trial-and-error approaches. Consequently, with this new design power, the exploration and implementation of multi-objective, complex, and functional nanophotonic devices become feasible. Herein, we used a recently emerged inverse design framework to demonstrate the design of a 1 × 2 polarization-insensitive wavelength division multiplexer (PIWDM) made of a low-refractive-index material with an index of 1.55. The designed PIWDM structure successfully steers toward the targeted channels for 1.30 µm and 1.55 µm with TE and TM polarizations, respectively. The transmission values were -2.42 and -2.18 dB for TE and -2.19 and -2.23 dB for TM polarization at the upper and lower waveguides, respectively. Taking advantage of the design with a low refractive index material, we scaled the structural dimensions corresponding to the microwave region, fabricated the compact device using a 3D printer, and conducted an experiment as a proof of concept. The experimentally verified PIWDM structure shows a power transmission efficiency of over -2.42 dB and a crosstalk value of less than -11.45 dB for the targeted wavelengths.