Dispersion-engineered nanocomposites enable achromatic diffractive optical elements

Werdehausen, Daniel; Burger, Sven; Staude, Isabelle; Pertsch, Thomas; Decker, Manuel

doi:10.1364/optica.6.001031

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Various research groups have designed achromatic MDLs via careful parametric optimization of the lens surface topography in the visible 3,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] , NIR 26 , SWIR 27 , LWIR 28 , THz 29,30 and microwave 31 bands. In fact, we have recently shown the design of a single achromatic MDL with a focal length of 18 mm and aperture of ~ 1 mm, operating across a continuous spectrum of wavelengths from 450 nm to 15 μm 32,33 .…”

Section: Sourangsu Banerji Jacqueline Cooke and Berardi Sensale-rodrigmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of fabrication errors and refractive index on multilevel diffractive lens performance

Banerji

Cooke

Sensale‐Rodriguez

2020

Sci Rep

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Multilevel diffractive lenses (MDLs) have emerged as an alternative to both conventional diffractive optical elements (DOEs) and metalenses for applications ranging from imaging to holographic and immersive displays. Recent work has shown that by harnessing structural parametric optimization of DOEs, one can design MDLs to enable multiple functionalities like achromaticity, depth of focus, wide-angle imaging, etc. with great ease in fabrication. Therefore, it becomes critical to understand how fabrication errors still do affect the performance of MDLs and numerically evaluate the trade-off between efficiency and initial parameter selection, right at the onset of designing an MDL, i.e., even before putting it into fabrication. Here, we perform a statistical simulation-based study on MDLs (primarily operating in the THz regime) to analyse the impact of various fabrication imperfections (single and multiple) on the final structure as a function of the number of ring height levels. Furthermore, we also evaluate the performance of these same MDLs with the change in the refractive index of the constitutive material. We use focusing efficiency as the evaluation criterion in our numerical analysis; since it is the most fundamental property that can be used to compare and assess the performance of lenses (and MDLs) in general designed for any application with any specific functionality.

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Section: Sourangsu Banerji Jacqueline Cooke and Berardi Sensale-rodrigmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of fabrication errors and refractive index on multilevel diffractive lens performance

Banerji

Cooke

Sensale‐Rodriguez

2020

Sci Rep

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“…In addition, Table 1 lists microstructure No. 5, which is composed of nanocomposite plastics [17] developed by D. Werdehausen et al [24]. The calculated DE dependence on the angle of incidence at various wavelengths for microstructures No.…”

Section: Results Of the Study Of Single-relief Microstructuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Highly Efficient Double-Layer Diffraction Microstructures Based on New Plastics and Molded Glasses

et al. 2021

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Within the framework of rigorous diffraction theory, the maximum possible incidence angles of radiation on two-layer sawtooth relief-phase microstructures in the visible (0.4 ≤ λ ≤ 0.7 μm) spectral range are compared. Optical materials for the layers of these microstructures are selected from a database of 47 plastics and 165 molded glasses. It is shown that when the ratio of the spatial period of the microstructure to the effective depth of the relief is greater than 20, the achievable angles within which the diffraction efficiency exceeds 0.95 lie in a wide range from 18.5° to 40.5° for single-relief structures and 7.5° to 22.3° for structures with two internal reliefs. The best results for purely plastic microstructures are obtained when the plastic CMT and the indium tin oxide nanocomposite in polymethylmethacrylate are used.

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“…This is because, for applications that span the entire visible spectrum, these sizes are within the quantum dot regime, in which the nanoparticles' electronic transitions can be tailored by varying their size and surface. [ 62–64 ] Doing so can likely extend the dispersion‐engineering capabilities of nanocomposites [ 16 ] even further.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, the transition between the homogeneous and heterogeneous regimes is not only a fundamental research issue, it also has immense practical relevance for nanocomposites, which could serve as powerful next‐generation optical materials. [ 16–21 ] Since nanocomposites contain distinct nanoscopic scatterers, they are also ideal prototype systems to investigate optical materials in general. This is because atoms or molecules can be treated on equal footing as nanoscopic scatterers, if their optical response is obtained from quantum mechanical simulations and captured in the notion of scattering theory.…”

Section: From Individual Scatterers To a Refractive Indexmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Modeling Optical Materials at the Single Scatterer Level: The Transition from Homogeneous to Heterogeneous Materials

Werdehausen

Santiago

Burger

et al. 2020

Advcd Theory and Sims

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Materials that contain distinct scatterers, for example, nanoparticles, with sizes exceeding 100 nm scatter light heavily and are heterogeneous. In contrast, the atomic or molecular scatterers in conventional optical materials form a homogeneous distribution on the scale of the wavelength. In this paper, the transition between homogeneous and heterogeneous materials is investigated. To this end, a procedure is introduced that allows for retrieving reliable refractive index values from full wave optical numerical simulations of the underlying multibody scattering problem. Using this procedure, it is shown that the concept of an effective refractive index breaks down on multiple levels as a material transitions out of the homogeneous regime. These findings allow for quantifying how novel dispersion‐engineered nanocomposites for bulk optical applications must be designed and show that Maxwell–Garnett‐type effective medium theories are accurate tools for the design of nanocomposites. The procedure can be readily generalized to other types of scatterers, including atoms and molecules and hence guide the design of different kinds of novel materials.

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Dispersion-engineered nanocomposites enable achromatic diffractive optical elements

Cited by 26 publications

References 34 publications

Impact of fabrication errors and refractive index on multilevel diffractive lens performance

Impact of fabrication errors and refractive index on multilevel diffractive lens performance

Highly Efficient Double-Layer Diffraction Microstructures Based on New Plastics and Molded Glasses

Modeling Optical Materials at the Single Scatterer Level: The Transition from Homogeneous to Heterogeneous Materials

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