AVS 64th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Electronic Materials and Photonics Division Thursday Sessions
       Session EM+MI+NS+SP+SS-ThM

Invited Paper EM+MI+NS+SP+SS-ThM1
Evolutionary Design of Multi-functional Optical Metasurfaces

Thursday, November 2, 2017, 8:00 am, Room 14

Session: Photonics, Optoelectronics, and Light Manipulation
Presenter: Teri Odom, Northwestern University
Correspondent: Click to Email
Metasurfaces are an emerging class of flat optics that can manipulate light via subwavelength phase elements. Their 2D structures are usually determined by (1) calculating the phase change required at each location to obtain far-field properties from analytical equations and (2) structuring each building block to produce that wavefront change. However, computational or digital approaches to design metasurfaces based on search heuristics offer advantages in targeting and realizing properties not possible by analytical expressions. This talk will describe an evolutionary approach to design flat lenses based on subwavelength plasmonic building blocks. Our lattice evolution algorithm can achieve desired optical responses by tuning the arrangement of the phase units on a discrete square lattice. We will discuss two different systems with different classes of building units—holes and particles—to realize achromatic lattice lenses at up to three wavelengths and flat lenses in semiconductor plasmonic materials such as titanium nitride. We will describe prospects for scaling the production of these lenses as well as their ability to achieve dynamic optical responses.