Dynamic metasurface lens based on MEMS technology

Abstract

In the recent years, metasurfaces, being flat and lightweight, have been designed to replace bulky optical components with various functions. We demonstrate a monolithic Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) integrated with a metasurface-based flat lens that focuses light in the mid-infrared spectrum. A two-dimensional scanning MEMS platform controls the angle of the lens along the two orthogonal axes (tip-tilt) by ±9 degrees, thus enabling dynamic beam steering. The device can compensate for off-axis incident light and thus correct for aberrations such as coma. We show that for low angular displacements, the integrated lens-on-MEMS system does not affect the mechanical performance of the MEMS actuators and preserves the focused beam profile as well as the measured full width at half maximum. We envision a new class of flat optical devices with active control provided by the combination of metasurfaces and MEMS for a wide range of applications, such as miniaturized MEMS-based microscope systems, LIDAR scanners, and projection systems.

Deep Learning: A Rapid and Efficient Route to Automatic Metasurface Design

“…[4][5][6][7] Due to their unique EM properties, metasurfaces have attracted great attentions from engineers and researchers. Recently, many novel metasurfaces have been presented and many exotic functionalities can be realized, such as holography, [8,9] perfect absorption, [10,11] vortex beam generation, [12,13] flat lenses, [14,15] and some other functional interfaces. [16][17][18][19] However, conventional design process usually consists of model design, parameter sweeping, and optimization.…”

Fano‐Enhanced Circular Dichroism in Deformable Stereo Metasurfaces

“…2D metasurfaces, [1][2][3] endowed with intriguing capabilities for manipulating the behaviors of electromagnetic (EM) waves, represent one of the most striking research topics in photonics (MEMS), spatial light modulators (SLM) and elastic platforms to achieve reconfigurable operation, [38][39][40][41] which, however, once again imposed challenges on fabrication complexity.…”

“…The other aim is the dynamic control of metasurfaces at optical wavelengths, which is much more challenging than that at terahertz and microwave regions. For example, the state‐of‐art optical metasurfaces have been recently integrated on microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), spatial light modulators (SLM) and elastic platforms to achieve reconfigurable operation, which, however, once again imposed challenges on fabrication complexity.…”

Reprogrammable multifocal THz metalens based on metal–insulator transition of VO2-assisted digital metasurface

“…The simulated phase profile exhibits a proposed device capability to concentrate reflected energy in a different spot out of the normal axis. The whole space scanning capability is the most significant feature of reconfigurable metalens for imaging applications, whereas in the conventional imaging systems scanning has been done by using mechanical movements [25]. Indeed in the VO2-assisted metalens, mechanical tunability replaced by temperature tunability via electrical stimulation.…”

“…Highly tunable elastic dielectric metasurface lenses based on stretchable substrates have also been proved, but they have low speeds and require a radial stretching mechanism that might increase the device size [22,23]. Also, controlling the axial movement or angular orientation of the metalens via integrating with the microelectromechanical systems [24,25] and laterally actuating two separate cubic metasurfaces based on the Alvarez lens design [26] are novel approaches for tunable metalens. On the other side, procedures of including tunable materials into metasurfaces for changing the functionality, such as the use of liquid crystals [27], phase-change materials [28,29], graphene [30][31][32] or others are widespread in various devices.…”