Metamaterial Design and Fabrication for High Performance, Miniaturized Optical Systems

Stanford researchers patented a method to design, computationally optimize and fabricate efficient optical devices using semiconducting and dielectric nanostructures. The nanostructure blocks are used to build devices (metasurfaces) that manipulate light, optimizing particular optical responses in ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and terahertz frequency bands. The design method applies to single layers of nanostructures and generalizes to multiple layers of nanostructures stacked vertically. Bulky optical components are miniaturized, resulting in ultra-thin and compact optical systems with a wide range of applications.

Stage of Development - Prototype
Researchers demonstrated single layer silicon metasurfaces that efficiently operate as devices as diverse as gratings to large numerical aperture lenses in the full visible and near-infrared spectrum. They continue to refine their optimization methods, fabricate multilayer metasurfaces, and develop physical setups to characterize metasurface devices.