Broadband Reflective Metalens in Visible Band Based on Bragg Reflector Multilayers for VECSEL Applications

Abstract

In conventional optics, curved lenses focus light rays to a focal point after light passes through them. These lenses have been designed to shape the wavefront of the incident beam as it emerges from the curved surface of the lens. Conventional lenses suffer from many limitations, such as limited optical quality for imaging and integration difficulties with other optical components due to their large size, huge thickness, as well as being difficult to manufacture. Using subwavelength structure, it is possible to fabricate flat, thin lenses (metalenses) with new optical properties not found in nature, in which many fundamental properties of light (like polarization, focal point, and phase) can be controlled with high accuracy. This results in high resolution and high quality of optical imaging. This thesis demonstrates a new design of reflective metalens, in which the metalens structure is integrated with another optical component: Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR). The metalens planer is a two-dimensional ultrathin planer arranged as an array with subwavelength separation distance. In recent works, a metalens was integrated with (metal/dielectric)-mirrors to form reflective metalenses. Simulation results show that, high-focusing efficiency is obtained for the lens (> 60%) with the ability to reflect96% of total incident optical power. In comparison, the new metalens-DBR design - processes maintain the same high-focusing efficiency, but with a reflectance of 99.99%, which makes it promising for optoelectronic integration and perfectly suitable for integration with Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSEL) technology. This study of the optical properties: focal length; optical aberration; insensitivity to light polarization; and focusing efficiency of demonstrated metalens was done mainly by Finite Difference Time Domaine (FDTD) by using Lumerical FDTD solution.