At-will chromatic dispersion by prescribing light trajectories with cascaded metasurfaces

Chromatic dispersion spatially separates white light into colours, producing rainbows and similar effects. Detrimental to imaging but essential to spectroscopy, chromatic dispersion is the result of material properties in refractive optics and is considered an inherent characteristic of diffractive devices such as gratings and flat lenses. Here, we present a fundamental relation connecting an optical system's dispersion to the trajectories light takes through it and show that arbitrary control over dispersion may be achieved by prescribing specific trajectories, even in diffractive systems. Using cascaded metasurfaces (2D arrays of sub-micron scatterers) to direct light along predetermined trajectories, we present an achromatic twisted metalens and experimentally demonstrate beam deflectors with arbitrary dispersion. This new insight and design approach usher in a new class of optical systems with wide-ranging applications.