Decoupling optical function and geometrical form using conformal flexible dielectric metasurfaces
Abstract
Physical geometry and optical properties of objects are correlated: cylinders focus light to a line, spheres to a point and arbitrarily shaped objects introduce optical aberrations. Multi-functional components with decoupled geometrical form and optical function are needed when specific optical functionalities must be provided while the shapes are dictated by other considerations like ergonomics, aerodynamics or aesthetics. Here we demonstrate an approach for decoupling optical properties of objects from their physical shape using thin and flexible dielectric metasurfaces which conform to objects' surface and change their optical properties. The conformal metasurfaces are composed of silicon nano-posts embedded in a polymer substrate that locally modify near-infrared (λ=915 nm) optical wavefronts. As proof of concept, we show that cylindrical lenses covered with metasurfaces can be transformed to function as aspherical lenses focusing light to a point. The conformal metasurface concept is highly versatile for developing arbitrarily shaped multi-functional optical devices.
Additional Information
© 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Received 28 October 2015; Accepted 14 April 2016; Published 19 May 2016. This work was supported by the DOE 'Light-Material Interactions in Energy Conversion' Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award no. DE-SC0001293. A.A. and E.A. were supported by Samsung Electronics. A.A. and Y.H. were also supported by DARPA. The device nanofabrication was performed at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech. Author contributions: S.M.K., A.A. and A.F. conceived the experiments. S.M.K., A.A., E.A and Y.H. performed the simulations and fabricated the devices. S.M.K., A.A and E.A. performed the measurements, and analysed the data. S.M.K., A.A., E.A. and A.F. co-wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. The authors declare no competing financial interests.Attached Files
Published - ncomms11618.pdf
Supplemental Material - ncomms11618-s1.pdf
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC4874029
- Eprint ID
- 67525
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160601-090500911
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- DE-SC0001293
- Samsung Electronics
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
- Created
-
2016-06-01Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-04-27Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Kavli Nanoscience Institute