LWIR Metalens for Monochromatic Lightweight Imaging Applications

The objective of this program is to develop a lightweight Long-Wave Infrared (LWIR) metalens to enable a 5x reduction in size weight and power (SWAP) for imaging systems in the LWIR waveband. Metalenses are artificially engineered subwavelength-spaced arrays of nanophotonic phase-shifting elements that can be configured to manipulate incident light. They consist of thin, patterned layers usually deposited on a flat substrate (e.g. Germanium on a Zinc Selenide substrate). These nanophotonic phase-shifting elements were designed and selected to produce an imaging lens. This work is focused on leveraging state-of-the-art advances in visible waveband metalenses, to advance complementary design and fabrication techniques to create metalenses in the LWIR. Progress has been made in the following areas: 1) Model development for improvement of accuracy in predicting performance of metalenses 2) Development of a polarization-independent meta-atom library containing NRL designed meta-atom component to be used in design of metalens 3) Fabrication of a germanium metalens on a zinc selenide substrate. More detailed descriptions of these topics are given below.