Application for new metalens from Harvard?

[Kilgore, Jason A.]

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I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard about a new "metalens" that "can focus the entire visible spectrum of light - including white light - in the same spot and in high resolution. This has only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses."

The announcement bills it for use with virtual imaging and augmented reality type devices, but I'm curious about its uses for microscopy.

Link to the announcement: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/01/single-metalens-focuses-all-colors-of-rainbow-in-one-point

From the announcement:
'One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard achromatic lenses."'

I'm picturing a system with an LED excitation that is tuneable for different wavelengths without chromatic aberration.  Thoughts?

Jason

** I have no affiliation with Harvard or this innovation **

Jason A. Kilgore
Technical Application Scientist
Molecular Probes / EVOS Tech Support
Life Sciences Solutions

Thermo Fisher Scientific
29851 Willow Creek Rd.
Eugene, OR  97402-9132
1-800-955-6288 then option 4, then option 3, then option 2.
Or dial direct at [phone]
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
www.thermofisher.com<http://www.thermofisher.com/>

[Kilgore, Jason A.]

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As an addendum, here's another announcement, from back in May, where the same researcher (Frederico Capasso) developed this technology for tuning the RI of immersion objective lenses...

https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2017/05/building-better-microscope

Jason


From: Kilgore, Jason A.
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2018 10:24 AM
To: Confocal Microscopy List ([hidden email]) <[hidden email]>
Subject: Application for new metalens from Harvard?


I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard about a new "metalens" that "can focus the entire visible spectrum of light - including white light - in the same spot and in high resolution. This has only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses."

The announcement bills it for use with virtual imaging and augmented reality type devices, but I'm curious about its uses for microscopy.

Link to the announcement: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/01/single-metalens-focuses-all-colors-of-rainbow-in-one-point

From the announcement:
'One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard achromatic lenses."'

I'm picturing a system with an LED excitation that is tuneable for different wavelengths without chromatic aberration.  Thoughts?

Jason

** I have no affiliation with Harvard or this innovation **

Jason A. Kilgore
Technical Application Scientist
Molecular Probes / EVOS Tech Support
Life Sciences Solutions

Thermo Fisher Scientific
29851 Willow Creek Rd.
Eugene, OR  97402-9132
1-800-955-6288 then option 4, then option 3, then option 2.
Or dial direct at [phone]
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
www.thermofisher.com<http://www.thermofisher.com/>

[Zdenek Svindrych-2]

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Hi all,
one of the limitations I can see is the efficiency of these lenses (it's
something else than the Strehl ratio in this kind of lens). You can look it
up in the supplementary materials of the relevant papers. It's up to about
50 % for the monochromatic designs and less than 20 % for the achromatic
designs...
Best, zdenek
--
Zdenek Svindrych, Ph.D.
Research Associate - Imaging Specialist
Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
email: [hidden email]

---------- Původní e-mail ----------
Od: Kilgore, Jason A. <[hidden email]>
Komu: [hidden email]
Datum: 2. 1. 2018 13:24:38
Předmět: Application for new metalens from Harvard?
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To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
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*****


I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard
about a new "metalens" that "can focus the entire visible spectrum of light
- including white light - in the same spot and in high resolution. This has
only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses."


The announcement bills it for use with virtual imaging and augmented reality
type devices, but I'm curious about its uses for microscopy.

Link to the announcement: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/01/single-
metalens-focuses-all-colors-of-rainbow-in-one-point

From the announcement:
'One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is
making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of
the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting
Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By
combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in
the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible
are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically
reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard
achromatic lenses."'

I'm picturing a system with an LED excitation that is tuneable for different
wavelengths without chromatic aberration. Thoughts?

Jason

** I have no affiliation with Harvard or this innovation **

Jason A. Kilgore
Technical Application Scientist
Molecular Probes / EVOS Tech Support
Life Sciences Solutions

Thermo Fisher Scientific
29851 Willow Creek Rd.
Eugene, OR 97402-9132
1-800-955-6288 then option 4, then option 3, then option 2.
Or dial direct at [phone]
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
www.thermofisher.com<http://www.thermofisher.com/>
"

[Jeremy Adler-5]

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'We have demonstrated an achromatic planar metalens (NA = 0.2) capable of focusing light to the diffraction limit from 470 to 670 nm, and an achromatic metalens (NA = 0.02) for imaging.'

The NA is a little on the low side - so far.

-----Original Message-----
From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of [hidden email]
Sent: 02 January 2018 19:50
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Application for new metalens from Harvard?

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Hi all,
one of the limitations I can see is the efficiency of these lenses (it's something else than the Strehl ratio in this kind of lens). You can look it up in the supplementary materials of the relevant papers. It's up to about
50 % for the monochromatic designs and less than 20 % for the achromatic designs...
Best, zdenek
--
Zdenek Svindrych, Ph.D.
Research Associate - Imaging Specialist
Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
email: [hidden email]

---------- Původní e-mail ----------
Od: Kilgore, Jason A. <[hidden email]>
Komu: [hidden email]
Datum: 2. 1. 2018 13:24:38
Předmět: Application for new metalens from Harvard?
"*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
*****


I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard about a new "metalens" that "can focus the entire visible spectrum of light
- including white light - in the same spot and in high resolution. This has only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses."


The announcement bills it for use with virtual imaging and augmented reality type devices, but I'm curious about its uses for microscopy.

Link to the announcement: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/01/single-
metalens-focuses-all-colors-of-rainbow-in-one-point

From the announcement:
'One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard achromatic lenses."'

I'm picturing a system with an LED excitation that is tuneable for different wavelengths without chromatic aberration. Thoughts?

Jason

** I have no affiliation with Harvard or this innovation **

Jason A. Kilgore
Technical Application Scientist
Molecular Probes / EVOS Tech Support
Life Sciences Solutions

Thermo Fisher Scientific
29851 Willow Creek Rd.
Eugene, OR 97402-9132
1-800-955-6288 then option 4, then option 3, then option 2.
Or dial direct at [phone]
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
www.thermofisher.com<http://www.thermofisher.com/>
"

[0000001ed7f52e4a-dmarc-request]

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To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
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*****


Looks interesting, an earlier paper from this group is Khorasaninejad et al. 2016, Science, 352, 1190. There they write: Chromatic aberrations in our metalens are more pronounced than the lenses based on refractive optics, resulting in a wavelength-dependent focal length. So the current paper is basically to revert this effect. However there seems to be a relation between the diameter of the lens, the NA and the group delay. To satisfy this, they use very small NAs (0.2 and 0.02) for the achromatic metalenses, which limits the achievable resolution. In Chen et al. (2017), Nano Lett., 17, 3188 they show a NA 0.9 water immersion and a NA 1.1 oil immersion lens (for a single wavelength), but also not that these lenses are designed for normal incidence and not suitable for widefield microscopy. However, they show confocal scans. It will probably take a few more years until we can see these in optical devices.

best wishes

Andreas




-----Original Message-----
From: zdedenn <[hidden email]>
To: CONFOCALMICROSCOPY <[hidden email]>
Sent: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 19:44
Subject: Re: Application for new metalens from Harvard?

*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
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*****

Hi all,
one of the limitations I can see is the efficiency of these lenses (it's
something else than the Strehl ratio in this kind of lens). You can look it
up in the supplementary materials of the relevant papers. It's up to about
50 % for the monochromatic designs and less than 20 % for the achromatic
designs...
Best, zdenek
--
Zdenek Svindrych, Ph.D.
Research Associate - Imaging Specialist
Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
email: [hidden email]

---------- Původní e-mail ----------
Od: Kilgore, Jason A. <[hidden email]>
Komu: [hidden email]
Datum: 2. 1. 2018 13:24:38
Předmět: Application for new metalens from Harvard?
"*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
*****


I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard
about a new "metalens" that "can focus the entire visible spectrum of light
- including white light - in the same spot and in high resolution. This has
only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses."


The announcement bills it for use with virtual imaging and augmented reality
type devices, but I'm curious about its uses for microscopy.

Link to the announcement: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/01/single-
metalens-focuses-all-colors-of-rainbow-in-one-point

From the announcement:
'One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is
making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of
the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting
Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By
combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in
the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible
are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically
reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard
achromatic lenses."'

I'm picturing a system with an LED excitation that is tuneable for different
wavelengths without chromatic aberration. Thoughts?

Jason

** I have no affiliation with Harvard or this innovation **

Jason A. Kilgore
Technical Application Scientist
Molecular Probes / EVOS Tech Support
Life Sciences Solutions

Thermo Fisher Scientific
29851 Willow Creek Rd.
Eugene, OR 97402-9132
1-800-955-6288 then option 4, then option 3, then option 2.
Or dial direct at [phone]
[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
www.thermofisher.com<http://www.thermofisher.com/>
"

[Lu Yan]

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*****

I think they have been struggled with the efficiency or insertion loss for quite a long time and the 2016 science paper was actually a “breakthrough” already in terms of the efficiency in the visible spectral range. Earlier research on flat optics by Nanfang Yu from the same group was limited in the much longer wavelength regime. It may take another a few years before any seriously considerations of utilizing this in traditional microscopy optics design. However, for some applications not sensitive to the light budget it might find interesting applications.

> 在 2018年1月3日，上午6:33，Andreas Bruckbauer <[hidden email]> 写道：
>
> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
>
> Looks interesting, an earlier paper from this group is Khorasaninejad et al. 2016, Science, 352, 1190. There they write: Chromatic aberrations in our metalens are more pronounced than the lenses based on refractive optics, resulting in a wavelength-dependent focal length. So the current paper is basically to revert this effect. However there seems to be a relation between the diameter of the lens, the NA and the group delay. To satisfy this, they use very small NAs (0.2 and 0.02) for the achromatic metalenses, which limits the achievable resolution. In Chen et al. (2017), Nano Lett., 17, 3188 they show a NA 0.9 water immersion and a NA 1.1 oil immersion lens (for a single wavelength), but also not that these lenses are designed for normal incidence and not suitable for widefield microscopy. However, they show confocal scans. It will probably take a few more years until we can see these in optical devices.
>
> best wishes
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: zdedenn <[hidden email]>
> To: CONFOCALMICROSCOPY <[hidden email]>
> Sent: Tue, 2 Jan 2018 19:44
> Subject: Re: Application for new metalens from Harvard?
>
> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Hi all,
> one of the limitations I can see is the efficiency of these lenses (it's
> something else than the Strehl ratio in this kind of lens). You can look it
> up in the supplementary materials of the relevant papers. It's up to about
> 50 % for the monochromatic designs and less than 20 % for the achromatic
> designs...
> Best, zdenek
> --
> Zdenek Svindrych, Ph.D.
> Research Associate - Imaging Specialist
> Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology
> Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
> email: [hidden email]
>
> ---------- Původní e-mail ----------
> Od: Kilgore, Jason A. <[hidden email]>
> Komu: [hidden email]
> Datum: 2. 1. 2018 13:24:38
> Předmět: Application for new metalens from Harvard?
> "*****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
>
> I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard
> about a new "metalens" that "can focus the entire visible spectrum of light
> - including white light - in the same spot and in high resolution. This has
> only ever been achieved in conventional lenses by stacking multiple lenses."
>
>
> The announcement bills it for use with virtual imaging and augmented reality
> type devices, but I'm curious about its uses for microscopy.
>
> Link to the announcement: https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/01/single-
> metalens-focuses-all-colors-of-rainbow-in-one-point
>
> From the announcement:
> 'One of the biggest challenges in designing an achromatic broadband lens is
> making sure that the outgoing wavelengths from all the different points of
> the metalens arrive at the focal point at the same time," said Wei Ting
> Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and first author of the paper. "By
> combining two nanofins into one element, we can tune the speed of light in
> the nanostructured material, to ensure that all wavelengths in the visible
> are focused in the same spot, using a single metalens. This dramatically
> reduces thickness and design complexity compared to composite standard
> achromatic lenses."'
>
> I'm picturing a system with an LED excitation that is tuneable for different
> wavelengths without chromatic aberration. Thoughts?
>
> Jason
>
> ** I have no affiliation with Harvard or this innovation **
>
> Jason A. Kilgore
> Technical Application Scientist
> Molecular Probes / EVOS Tech Support
> Life Sciences Solutions
>
> Thermo Fisher Scientific
> 29851 Willow Creek Rd.
> Eugene, OR 97402-9132
> 1-800-955-6288 then option 4, then option 3, then option 2.
> Or dial direct at [phone]
> [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>
> www.thermofisher.com<http://www.thermofisher.com/>
> "

[Nathan McCorkle]

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On Tue, Jan 2, 2018 at 10:24 AM, Kilgore, Jason A.
<[hidden email]> wrote:
> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
>
> I'm curious what the listserve thinks of the news out today from Harvard about a new "metalens"

I'm guessing this is from the same group that published metalens
equations a few years ago.

Back then, I actually wrote some code in Python using OpenCV to
re-create the effect, I was hoping to etch these into metal-coated
glass with lithography or a FIB (focused ion beam):
https://gist.github.com/nmz787/83a826ca4d40011262e7382b46c22570
and the image output from that code:
https://imgur.com/PKFXtCV

I never did etch these to test... still on my to-do list though.
If there's interest in obtaining some of these, I might be able to
scrounge up a day or two to get a test pattern etched.