Active metasurfaces promise reconfigurable optics with drastically improved compactness, ruggedness, manufacturability, and functionality compared to their traditional bulk counterparts. Optical phase change materials (O-PCMs) offer an appealing material solution for active metasurface devices with their large index contrast and nonvolatile switching characteristics. Here we report what we believe to be the first electrically reconfigurable nonvolatile metasurfaces based on O-PCMs. The O-PCM alloy used in the devices, Ge2Sb2Se4Te1 (GSST), uniquely combines giant non-volatile index modulation capability, broadband low optical loss, and a large reversible switching volume, enabling significantly enhanced light-matter interactions within the active O-PCM medium. Capitalizing on these favorable attributes, we demonstrated continuously tunable active metasurfaces with record half-octave spectral tuning range and large optical contrast of over 400%. We further prototyped a polarization-insensitive phase-gradient metasurface to realize dynamic optical beam steering.

Metasurfaces have become a promising means for manipulating optical wavefronts in flat and high-performance optical devices. Conventionally metasurface device design relies on trial-anderror methods to obtain target electromagnetic (EM) responses, which demands significant efforts to investigate the enormous number of possible meta-atom structures. In this paper, a deep neural network approach is introduced that significantly improves on both speed and accuracy compared to techniques currently used to assemble metasurface-based devices. Our neural network approach overcomes three key challenges that have limited previous neural-network-based design schemes: input/output vector dimensional mismatch, accurate EM-wave phase prediction, as well as adaptation to 3-D dielectric structures, and can be generically applied to a wide variety of metasurface device designs across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Using this new methodology, examples of neural networks capable of producing on-demand designs for metaatoms, metasurface filters, and phase-change reconfigurable metasurfaces are demonstrated.Here we propose an implicit way to construct and train the networks to predict the amplitude and phase responses of meta-structures. For a typical meta-structure, like the one shown in Fig. 1A,

Active metasurfaces, whose optical properties can be modulated post-fabrication, have emerged as an intensively explored field in recent years. The efforts to date, however, still face major performance limitations in tuning range, optical quality, and efficiency, especially for non-mechanical actuation mechanisms. In this paper, we introduce an active metasurface platform combining phase tuning in the full 2π range and diffraction-limited performance using an all-dielectric, low-loss architecture based on optical phase change materials (O-PCMs). We present a generic design principle enabling binary switching of metasurfaces between arbitrary phase profiles and propose a new figure-of-merit (FOM) tailored for reconfigurable meta-optics. We implement the approach to realize a high-performance varifocal metalens operating at 5.2 μm wavelength. The reconfigurable metalens features a record large switching contrast ratio of 29.5 dB. We further validate aberration-free and multi-depth imaging using the metalens, which represents a key experimental demonstration of a non-mechanical tunable metalens with diffraction-limited performance.

Wide field-of-view (FOV) optical functionality is crucial for implementation of advanced imaging and image projection devices. Conventionally, wide FOV operation is attained with complicated assembly of multiple optical elements known as "fisheye lenses". Here we present a novel metalens design capable of performing diffractionlimited focusing and imaging over an unprecedented near 180°angular FOV. The lens is monolithically integrated on a one-piece flat substrate and involves only a single layer of metasurface that corrects third-order Seidel aberrations including coma, astigmatism, and field curvature. The metalens further features a planar focal surface, which enables considerably simplified system architectures for applications in imaging and projection. We fabricated the metalens using Huygens meta-atoms operating at 5.2 μm wavelength and experimentally demonstrated aberration-free focusing and imaging over the entire FOV. The design concept is generic and can be readily adapted to different meta-atom geometries and wavelength ranges to meet diverse application demands.

The mid-infrared (mid-IR) is a strategically important band for numerous applications ranging from night vision to biochemical sensing. Here we theoretically analyzed and experimentally realized a Huygens metasurface platform capable of fulfilling a diverse cross-section of optical functions in the mid-IR. The meta-optical elements were constructed using high-index chalcogenide films deposited on fluoride substrates: the choices of wide-band transparent materials allow the design to be scaled across a broad infrared spectrum. Capitalizing on a two-component Huygens’ meta-atom design, the meta-optical devices feature an ultra-thin profile (λ0/8 in thickness) and measured optical efficiencies up to 75% in transmissive mode for linearly polarized light, representing major improvements over state-of-the-art. We have also demonstrated mid-IR transmissive meta-lenses with diffraction-limited focusing and imaging performance. The projected size, weight and power advantages, coupled with the manufacturing scalability leveraging standard microfabrication technologies, make the Huygens meta-optical devices promising for next-generation mid-IR system applications.