Harvard University develops mass-produced all glass, centimeter level full spectrum superlens

The super lens plane mainly focuses light through nanostructures, and it is expected to completely change everything from microscopes to cameras, to sensors and displays. But so far, most lenses can achieve the size of a glitter sheet. Although this size can already achieve excellent results in specific applications, we need larger lenses in low light conditions where the lens needs to be larger than the pupil, such as in virtual reality applications.

Now, a research team from the John Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University has developed an all glass, centimeter level visible spectrum superlenses that can be manufactured using conventional chip production methods.

This study has been published in the journal Nano Letters.

Related papers: All Class, Large metalens at Visible Wavelength Using Deep-Ultraviolet Projection Lithography

The final author of the paper, Professor Federico Capasso, stated, "This study paves the way for so-called smartphone wafer level cameras, where CMOS chips and meta lens sensors can be directly stacked together and easily optically aligned because they are both flat. In the future, the same company can produce chips and lenses simultaneously because they can be manufactured using the same technology: photolithography

First author of the paper, John Paulson, postdoctoral fellow at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences??? Previously, we were unable to mass produce centimeter level hyper lens sensors for the visible spectrum because we either used time-consuming electron beam lithography techniques or L-Line optical step lithography techniques that did not have the required resolution

In order to mass produce centimeter level superlenses, researchers used a technique called Deep Ultraviolet (DUV) projection lithography. DUV is typically used for PC and mobile phone chips that require detailed patterning. By utilizing this technology, each chip can generate a large number of superlenses, each composed of millions of nanoscale components, requiring only one exposure.

By directly etching the nanostructure pattern onto the glass surface, researchers have eliminated the time-consuming deposition process required for the original hyper lens sensor.

This is the first mass-produced all glass, centimeter level full spectrum hyper lens.

However, this type of lens currently has chromatic aberration, meaning that all light of different colors will not be focused on the same point, but researchers are actively exploring large-diameter achromatic superlenses.