Review for optical metalens based on metasurfaces: fabrication and applications
PMC12540773
· 10.1038/s41378-025-01064-5
Gap Declaration
Specifically, the existing manufacturing methods for micro-nano structures have relatively low output in mass production. The currently recognized high-throughput manufacturing method for metalenses is through NIL technique. Further research is needed on the abrasion of nanostructures of the master plate and the removal of residual polymers after each imprint, and also how to work with existing die stamping equipment for standardized production. Secondly, the errors occur during etching. Although photolithography technique theoretically offers high resolution, due to subsequent manufacturing processes, some minor secondary structures fail to form, which leads to a decline in work efficiency.
Abstract
Metalens is the next generation of optical metasurfaces for compact imaging, sensing, and display applications that allow the phase, polarization, frequency, amplitude, angular momentum, etc. of the incident light to be designed with high degrees of freedom to meet the application requirements, which has attracted broad interest in the field of planar optics. One significant challenge in implementing applications for metalens is the efficient fabrication of large-scale nanostructures with high resolution, robustness and uniform patterning. In this review, we first introduced the manufacturing techniques compatible with metasurfaces fabrication in detail, including masked lithography, maskless lithography, and additive manufacturing, discussed the limitations and provided some insights. Nex…
Conclusions / Discussion
Future outlook and conclusion The challenges of commercialization As the third-generation optical lens element, metalens shows a good development prospect because of its sub-wavelength thickness and ultra-light characteristics and arbitrary parameter control of optical wavefront. Many companies have developed various applications based on its advantages: Metalenz and STMicroelectronics teamed up to deliver a next-generation FlightSense™ time-of-flight (ToF) ranging sensor, the VL53L8 (https://metalenz.com/metalenz-and-stmicroelectronics-deliver-worlds-first-optical-metasurface-technology-for-consumer-electronics-devices), Canon demonstrated metalens technology at its Expo (https://news.mynavi.jp/article/20231019-2796140), MetalenX released the world’s first wide-spectrum visible light aberration-free meta-hybrid optical system prototype lens (https://www.metalenx.com/xinwenzhongxin/274.html), Leadoptik has collaborated with Stanford Medicine on research aimed at promoting the application and development of AI-enhanced real-time optical imaging technology in the field of lung cancer biopsy (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stanford-medicine-and-leadoptik-announce-research-co…
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Structural Hole
65% bridge
Technique originates in physics; functional analogues in neuroscience, genomics bioinformatics literature are absent.
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