Highly efficient multifunctional metasurface integrating lens, prism, and wave plate

The miniaturization of optical systems is crucial for various applications, including compact augmented reality/virtual reality devices, microelectromechanical system sensors, ranging technologies, and microfabricated atomic clocks. However, reliance on bulky discrete optical elements has been a significant obstacle to achieving this miniaturization. This work introduces a highly efficient multifunctional metasurface (MFMS) that seamlessly integrates a lens, prism, and quarter-wave plate (QWP). This innovation allows simultaneous collimation, beam deflection, and polarization conversion within a singular thin element. Specifically, for the prism-QWP bifunctional integration, we achieved a high diffraction efficiency of 72.8% and a degree of circular polarization of -0.955 under exposure to linearly polarized light at a wavelength of 795 nm, proving its potential for ultracompact atomic clock applications. Moreover, the lens-prism-QWP trifunctional integration successfully showed diffraction-limited focusing performance with a numerical aperture of 0.4, which was sufficient to collimate a beam with a divergence angle of 20 ^∘, corresponding to the light emitted from a standard vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser.