Publications

Metasurfaces offer a unique platform to precisely control optical wavefronts and enable the realization of flat lenses, or metalenses, which have the potential to substantially reduce the size and complexity of imaging systems and to realize new imaging modalities. However, it is a major challenge to create achromatic metalenses that produce a single focal length over a broad wavelength range because of the difficulty in simultaneously engineering phase profiles at distinct wavelengths on a single metasurface. For practical applications, there is a further challenge to create broadband achromatic metalenses that work in the transmission mode for incident light waves with any arbitrary polarization state. We developed a design methodology and created libraries of meta-units—building blocks of metasurfaces—with complex cross-sectional geometries to provide diverse phase dispersions (phase as a function of wavelength), which is crucial for creating broadband achromatic metalenses. We elucidated the fundamental limitations of achromatic metalens performance by deriving mathematical equations that govern the tradeoffs between phase dispersion and achievable lens parameters, including the lens diameter, numerical aperture (NA), and bandwidth of achromatic operation. We experimentally demonstrated several dielectric achromatic metalenses reaching the fundamental limitations. These metalenses work in the transmission mode with polarization-independent focusing efficiencies up to 50% and continuously provide a near-constant focal length over λ = 1200–1650 nm. These unprecedented properties represent a major advance compared to the state of the art and a major step toward practical implementations of metalenses.

Broadband high reflectance in nature is often the result of randomly, three-dimensionally structured materials. This study explores unique optical properties associated with one-dimensional nanostructures discovered in silk cocoon fibers of the comet moth, Argema mittrei. The fibers are populated with a high density of air voids randomly distributed across the fiber cross-section but are invariant along the fiber. These filamentary air voids strongly scatter light in the solar spectrum. A single silk fiber measuring ~50 μm thick can reflect 66% of incoming solar radiation, and this, together with the fibers’ high emissivity of 0.88 in the mid-infrared range, allows the cocoon to act as an efficient radiative-cooling device. Drawing inspiration from these natural radiative-cooling fibers, biomimetic nanostructured fibers based on both regenerated silk fibroin and polyvinylidene difluoride are fabricated through wet spinning. Optical characterization shows that these fibers exhibit exceptional optical properties for radiative-cooling applications: nanostructured regenerated silk fibers provide a solar reflectivity of 0.73 and a thermal emissivity of 0.90, and nanostructured polyvinylidene difluoride fibers provide a solar reflectivity of 0.93 and a thermal emissivity of 0.91. The filamentary air voids lead to highly directional scattering, giving the fibers a highly reflective sheen, but more interestingly, they enable guided optical modes to propagate along the fibers through transverse Anderson localization. This discovery opens up the possibility of using wild silkmoth fibers as a biocompatible and bioresorbable material for optical signal and image transport.

Transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) have emerged as alternative plasmonic materials in recent years to replace noble metals. The advantages of TCOs include CMOS compatibility, tunability of optical and structural properties, and reduced losses. In this work, we demonstrate how post-deposition annealing of indium tin oxide (ITO) films in oxygen atmosphere allows for tuning their optical dispersion properties to the mid-infrared spectral range while simultaneously reducing their absorption losses. In particular, we show a materials strategy that extends the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) point of ITO from the near-infrared to the mid-infrared range. This is demonstrated by fabricating periodic arrays of ITO discs of varying diameters and characterizing their plasmonic resonances in the mid-infrared range from λ = 5 to 10 µm. The developed ITO plasmonic structures pave the way to the development of novel infrared active devices for sensing and spectroscopy on a silicon-compatible platform.

A galvanic-displacement-reaction-based, room-temperature “dip-and-dry” technique is demonstrated for fabricating selectively solar-absorbing plasmonic-nanoparticle-coated foils (PNFs). The technique, which allows for facile tuning of the PNFs' spectral reflectance to suit different radiative and thermal environments, yields PNFs which exhibit excellent, wide-angle solar absorptance (0.96 at 15°, to 0.97 at 35°, to 0.79 at 80°), and low hemispherical thermal emittance (0.10) without the aid of antireflection coatings. The thermal emittance is on par with those of notable selective solar absorbers (SSAs) in the literature, while the wide-angle solar absorptance surpasses those of previously reported SSAs with comparable optical selectivities. In addition, the PNFs show promising mechanical and thermal stabilities at temperatures of up to 200 °C. Along with the performance of the PNFs, the simplicity, inexpensiveness, and environmental friendliness of the “dip-and-dry” technique makes it an appealing alternative to current methods for fabricating selective solar absorbers.

Research on two-dimensional designer optical structures, or metasurfaces, has mainly focused on controlling the wavefronts of light propagating in free space. Here, we show that gradient metasurface structures consisting of phased arrays of plasmonic or dielectric nanoantennas can be used to control guided waves via strong optical scattering at subwavelength intervals. Based on this design principle, we experimentally demonstrate waveguide mode converters, polarization rotators and waveguide devices supporting asymmetric optical power transmission. We also demonstrate all-dielectric on-chip polarization rotators based on phased arrays of Mie resonators with negligible insertion losses. Our gradient metasurfaces can enable small-footprint, broadband and low-loss photonic integrated devices.