Physical and Digital methods for tunable metasurfaces

Abstract

Metasurfaces are a growing field in optics which can be appealing for many applications. Metasurfaces are 2D arrangements of sub-wavelength optical scatterers that can perform many of the existing optical functions as conventional optics. However, show potential in performance, versatility, and manufacturability when compared to conventional optics. In this thesis, design and fabrication of tunable metasurface optics are explored. Forward design is used to generate extended depth of focus (EDOF) optics which can enable lower complexity optical imaging systems. Gradient based inverse design is demonstrated to perform a non-trivial 1D-to-2D optical transform. Finally, design of an electro-optic spatial light modulator is explored.