Correction of Aberrations via Polarization in Single Layer Metalenses

The correction of multiple aberrations in an optical system requires different optical elements, which increases its cost and complexity. Metasurfaces hold great promise to providing new functionality for miniaturized and low-cost optical systems. A key advantage over their bulk counterparts is the metasurface's ability to respond to the polarization of light, which adds a new degree of freedom to the optical design. Here, it is shown that polarization control enables a form-birefringent metalens to correct for both spherical and off-axis aberrations using a single element only, which is not possible with bulk optics. The metalens encodes two phase profiles onto the same surface, thus allowing switching from high resolution to wide field of view operation. Such ability to obtain both high resolution and wide field of view in a single layer is an important step towards integration of miniaturized optical systems, which may find many applications, e.g., in microscopy and endoscopy.

Automated summary

Metasurfaces have great potential to provide new functionality for miniaturized and low-cost optical systems. This study investigates the influence of polarization control on the performance of form-birefringent metalens and shows that it can correct for both spherical and off-axis aberrations using a single element, while allowing switching between high resolution and wide field of view operation. This is an important step towards the integration of miniaturized optical systems.