Metasurface-enabled miniaturized quantitative phase imaging system.

Area of Science:

• Optics and Photonics
• Metasurface Technology
• Quantitative Phase Imaging

Background:

• Miniaturization of quantitative phase imaging (QPI) systems is essential for point-of-care diagnostics and semiconductor wafer inspection.
• Current QPI systems often lack the compactness required for real-time, in-line applications.
• Metasurfaces offer a promising route to miniaturize optical systems due to their ability to manipulate light wavefronts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and numerically validate a miniaturized quantitative phase imaging system.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of using a metasurface for single-shot QPI.
• To achieve a high numerical aperture for enhanced imaging capabilities.

Main Methods:

• Design of a metasurface composed of a pixelated deflector array and multilayer thin films.
• Optimization of the spatial frequency-dependent transmittance of the multilayer thin films.
• Numerical simulation to validate the phase imaging capability and numerical aperture.

Main Results:

• A metasurface-based QPI system was designed and simulated.
• The system enables single-shot quantitative phase imaging by converting spatial frequencies to intensity variations.
• A high numerical aperture of up to 0.2 was achieved and validated numerically.

Conclusions:

• The proposed metasurface-based system offers a pathway to highly miniaturized quantitative phase imaging.
• This technology has significant potential for advancing point-of-care diagnostics and in-line semiconductor inspection.
• The work demonstrates the effectiveness of metasurfaces in developing compact optical measurement systems.