Multilayer all-polymer metasurface stacked on optical fiber via sequential micro-punching process

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Materials Science
• Nanotechnology

Background:

• Metasurface technology offers advanced optical functionalities.
• Integrating metasurfaces with optical fibers is challenging due to small fiber facet areas.
• Existing fabrication methods struggle with precision and efficiency for fiber-based metasurfaces.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel fabrication process for stacking multiple polymer metasurfaces onto single-mode optical fibers.
• To demonstrate the efficacy of this process for creating functional metasurface-on-fiber devices.
• To overcome the limitations of small fiber facet areas in metasurface integration.

Main Methods:

• Sequential micro-punching process for stacking metasurfaces.
• E-beam lithography to fabricate mesh-type nanohole metasurfaces on polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) membranes.
• Integration of fabricated metasurfaces onto the end face of a single-mode optical fiber.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated rapid and precise stacking of multiple polymer metasurfaces on optical fibers.
• Achieved highly efficient all-polymer metalenses with 83% efficiency for a 1550 nm laser.
• Successfully generated perfect vortex beams with topological charge 3 using orbital angular momentum (OAM) metasurfaces.

Conclusions:

• The proposed micro-punching process is a breakthrough for fabricating metasurface-integrated optical fibers.
• This technique enables efficient coupling of advanced optical functions to optical fibers.
• The developed metasurface-on-fiber platforms have potential for diverse applications in telecommunications and beyond.