Meta-optics achieves RGB-achromatic focusing for virtual reality

Zhaoyi Li; Peng Lin; Yao-Wei Huang; Joon-Suh Park; Wei Ting Chen; Zhujun Shi; Cheng-Wei Qiu; Ji-Xin Cheng; Federico Capasso

doi:10.1126/sciadv.abe4458

Meta-optics achieves RGB-achromatic focusing for virtual reality

Sci Adv. 2021 Jan 27;7(5):eabe4458. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe4458. Print 2021 Jan.

Authors

Zhaoyi Li¹, Peng Lin², Yao-Wei Huang^{3

4}, Joon-Suh Park^{3

5}, Wei Ting Chen³, Zhujun Shi^{3

6}, Cheng-Wei Qiu⁴, Ji-Xin Cheng^{2

7}, Federico Capasso¹

Affiliations

¹ Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. [email protected] [email protected].
² Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
³ Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁴ Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
⁵ Nanophotonics Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
⁶ Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
⁷ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.

Abstract

Virtual and augmented realities are rapidly developing technologies, but their large-scale penetration will require lightweight optical components with small aberrations. We demonstrate millimeter-scale diameter, high-NA, submicron-thin, metasurface-based lenses that achieve diffraction-limited achromatic focusing of the primary colors by exploiting constructive interference of light from multiple zones and dispersion engineering. To illustrate the potential of this approach, we demonstrate a virtual reality system based on a home-built fiber scanning near-eye display.

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