Broadband waveplate lenses

Tabiryan, Nelson V.; Serak, Svetlana V.; Nersisyan, Sarik R.; Roberts, David E.; Zel'dovich, Boris Ya; Steeves, Diane M.; Kimball, Brian R.

doi:10.1364/oe.24.007091

Cited by 80 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…However, to achieve high performances, very complex fabrication processes are needed. [13,14,21,[29][30][31][32][33][34] The PB microlenses made of liquid crystals are particularly attractive because of their close to 100% efficiency and switchable focal lengths. [19,[24][25][26] The phase profiles desired for lensing can also be realized with the Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phases [27,28] by using birefringent materials or metasurfaces with spatially variant optical axes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Low f‐Number Diffraction‐Limited Pancharatnam–Berry Microlenses Enabled by Plasmonic Photopatterning of Liquid Crystal Polymers

Jiang

Guo

et al. 2019

Advanced Materials

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For example, phase profiles required for lensing can be realized by sculpturing dielectric substrates with discretized steps or sloped ridges through photo lithography and reactive ion etching. [18][19][20] These lithography processes make diffractive microlenses more tailorable than refractive microlenses in terms of filling factor and low f-number. However, to achieve high performances, very complex fabrication processes are needed. For example, up to 8 lithography steps and sometimes electron-beam lithography are needed to achieve low f-numbers, [21][22][23] diffraction-limited performance, and over 90% efficiency. [19,[24][25][26] The phase profiles desired for lensing can also be realized with the Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phases [27,28] by using birefringent materials or metasurfaces with spatially variant optical axes. [13,14,21,[29][30][31][32][33][34] The PB microlenses made of liquid crystals are particularly attractive because of their close to 100% efficiency and switchable focal lengths. [31,33,35,36] Large-sized PB lenses with low f-numbers can be made by holography photopatterning with a refractive master lens, [31] while liquid crystal PB microlenses are still limited to large f-number (>10) [32,33] and no work has been able to show diffraction-limited quality.A range of techniques have been developed in recent years to align liquid crystal molecules into arbitrary designer orientation patterns, which are either based on photoalignments using digital micromirror device (DMD), [37,38] pixel-to-pixel direct laser writing, [30] holography interference [31] and plasmonic photo patterning, [39][40][41] or based on nanostructured surfaces by using nanoimprinting [33] or atomic force microscopy scribing. [42] These techniques have enabled various applications and research ranging from optical devices to programmable origami. [30,33,37,38,[43][44][45][46][47] Here, we show that high-quality microlenses based on PB phases can be designed and made with liquid crystal polymers by using a plasmonic photopatterning technique. The plasmonic photopatterning technique allows for arbitrary molecular orientations encoded in designs of so-called plasmonic metamasks. We designed and fabricated microlenses with a set of focal lengths and f-numbers to test the quality and resolution limit of the plasmonic photopatterning technique. As discussed later, the microlenses with f-number down to 2 requires 1.5 µm of smallest molecular pitches.Microlenses are desired by a wide range of industrial applications while it is always challenging to make them with diffraction-limited quality. Here, it is shown that high-quality microlenses based on Pancharatnam-Berry (PB) phases can be made with liquid crystal polymers by using a plasmonic photopatterning technique. Based on the generalized Snell's law for the PB phases, PB microlenses with a range of focal lengths and f-numbers are designed and fabricated and their point-spread functions and ability to image micrometer-sized particles are carefully characterized. The results show that...

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confidence: 99%

Low f‐Number Diffraction‐Limited Pancharatnam–Berry Microlenses Enabled by Plasmonic Photopatterning of Liquid Crystal Polymers

Jiang

Guo

et al. 2019

Advanced Materials

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“…Interestingly, for 460 nm, the oblique angle efficiency increases over wavelength, since at oblique angle the effective birefringence matches well to half wavelength condition. Although in this case it seems that the 630 nm efficiency drops to rather low (only 70%), this can be alleviated through proper parameter control such as shifting the central wavelength to longer wavelength or through wavelength-broadening technique such as reported in [11].…”

Section: Efficiency Over Wavelength and Incident Anglementioning

confidence: 83%

72‐4: Switchable Lens based on Cycloidal Diffractive Waveplate for AR and VR Applications

Lee

Tan

Weng

et al. 2017

Symp Digest of Tech Papers

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“…The procedure is similar to that of conventional PBLs, as described in our previous work, but here a more complicated sandwich‐like axial structure, as depicted in Figure e, is used to further widen the spectral bandwidth as mentioned by Zhan et al and Komanduri et al Different from conventional metasurface, the PBLs manifest ideally flat geometry even in nanoscale and the LC molecules inside employ a complex structure, right‐hand twist, nontwist, and left‐hand twist from one substrate to the other. With more degrees of freedom, the bandwidth of the three‐layer system is designed to be wider than that of the two‐layer structure . As a result, it is able to cover most of the light from display panel, especially at the blue and red edges of visible spectrum.…”

Section: Recipe Of the Materials And Spin‐coating In The Pbl Fabricatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Practical Chromatic Aberration Correction in Virtual Reality Displays Enabled by Cost‐Effective Ultra‐Broadband Liquid Crystal Polymer Lenses

Zhan

Zou

Xiong

et al. 2019

Advanced Optical Materials

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Chromatic aberration (CA) is a critical issue in immersive virtual reality displays. The current digital compensation method can reduce the CA by pre‐processing the image contents but at the cost of extra memory space, processing time, and power consumption. Moreover, it is not possible to digitally compensate the CA within each color channel. Here, a practical optical approach is presented to correct the CAs, including the sub‐channel ones, in the virtual reality system, whose functionality is verified by both ray‐tracing analysis and experimental results. In this device, a compact ultra‐broadband Pancharatnam‐Berry phase lens (PBL) with complex axial molecular structure is fabricated and then hybridized with a refractive Fresnel lens. Due to their opposite chromatic dispersion, the system's CA is significantly reduced. To eliminate ghost image from the zero‐order leakage of PBL, a broadband circular polarizer is implemented to block the stray light. As a result, clear image within the entire 100° field‐of‐view is achieved. The proposed large‐size cost‐efficient broadband wide‐view flat optics can practically benefit not only virtual reality displays but also general imaging systems for practical applications and scientific research.

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Broadband waveplate lenses

Cited by 80 publications

References 33 publications

Low f‐Number Diffraction‐Limited Pancharatnam–Berry Microlenses Enabled by Plasmonic Photopatterning of Liquid Crystal Polymers

Low f‐Number Diffraction‐Limited Pancharatnam–Berry Microlenses Enabled by Plasmonic Photopatterning of Liquid Crystal Polymers

72‐4: Switchable Lens based on Cycloidal Diffractive Waveplate for AR and VR Applications

Practical Chromatic Aberration Correction in Virtual Reality Displays Enabled by Cost‐Effective Ultra‐Broadband Liquid Crystal Polymer Lenses

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