Design of fabrication-tolerant meta-atoms for polarization-multiplexed metasurfaces

Abstract

Metasurfaces can replace bulk optical components in a more compact form factor in applications including communication systems, sensors, and manufacturing technology. However, their design and fabrication is challenging due to competing demands of selecting meta-atoms that simultaneously provide the required amplitude and phase modulation while being robust to fabrication errors. Here, we develop two design heuristics to assist with the down-selection of meta-atoms into sensitivity-informed libraries, based on either selecting meta-atoms with minimal sensitivity or minimizing the relative sensitivities between meta-atoms. We evaluate both methods on a polarization-dependent phase mask and compare the resulting phase and intensity errors.

Graphical Abstract