Extreme‐Angle Silicon Infrared Optics Enabled by Streamlined Surfaces

Abstract

Infrared optical systems are indispensable in almost all domains of society, but their performances are often restricted by bulky size, small field of view, large thermal sensitivity, high fabrication cost, etc. Here, based on the concept of catenary optics, a novel isophase streamline optimization approach is leveraged to design silicon complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)‐compatible metasurfaces with broadband, wide‐angle, and high‐efficiency performances, which breaks through the glass ceiling of traditional optical technologies. By using the truly local geometric phase, a maximum diffraction efficiency approaching 100% is obtained in ultrawide spectral and angular ranges. Somewhat surprising results are shown in that wide‐angle diffraction‐limited imaging and laser beam steering can be realized with a record field of view up to 178°. This methodology is scalable to the entire optical band and other materials, enabling unprecedented compact infrared systems for surveillance, unmanned vehicles, medical science, etc.

Electromagnetic Architectures: Structures, Properties, Functions and Their Intrinsic Relationships in Subwavelength Optics and Electromagnetics

“…More interestingly, by suppressing the propagation phase in all-dielectric catenary-like streamline structures, a maximum diffraction efficiency approaching 100% is obtained in ultrawide spectral and angular ranges, and wide-angle (178 ) diffraction-limited imaging has also been realized using a single planar metadevice. [122,123] In addition, multistate wave front tunable metadevices have also been realized based on phase-change meta-atoms, in which the combination of the two phases can increase the function complexity while decreasing the design complexity. [124]…”

Multispectral Scattering Imaging Based on Metasurface Diffuser and Deep Learning

“…Optical metasurfaces are 2D planar elements composed of subwavelength nanostructures that can flexibly modulate the parameters of the light, such as amplitude, phase, spectral, and polarization state. [ 21–26 ] Therefore, metasurfaces have great potential to replace traditional optical devices with planar and ultrathin optical devices. [ 27–29 ] These efforts push the engineering optics into a new era: Engineering Optics 2.0.…”

Reflective Quasi-Continuous Metasurface with Continuous Phase Control for Light Focusing

“…Its theoretical energy efficiency does not change with different incident light wavelengths in the visible spectrum, particularly when the characteristic dimension of catenary is at deep sub-wavelength magnitude. This quasi-continuous metasurface has been widely used to design the vortex beam generator [ 18 ], deflector [ 20 ] and holography [ 23 , 24 ]. However, most of the reported quasi-continuous metasurfaces were composed of plasmonic structures [ 20 , 23 ], and the transmissions of such nano-structures were limited.…”