Metalenses is a technique used in abrasive chip manufacturing. The process utilizes a high intensity beam of electrons for the abrasion of substrate materials. The method has a wide spectrum of uses which involve beam shaping: abrasive abrasion, laser cutting, etching, and even selective crystallization, such as in chip manufacturing. But perhaps it’s best known in the field of microfabrication where the technique has the most promise for creating very thin films with properties that are amenable to use in numerous applications.
What makes you use metalenses?
Because of the high energy density, which focuses on the metalense material, metalenses of this type can be used to apply to the next generation microfabrication with targeted thickness, thereby greatly increasing the applications. It’s also possible to use the fabrication of metalenses in conjunction with capasso. This is a convenient approach for high-volume manufacturing because the two fabricators can incorporate identical techniques in different locations. And of course, as with any fabrication process, the combination of metalenses and capasso can be used in direct contact as well.
For example, some applications may call for the utilization of multiple gemstone powders. In these instances, multiple gemstone wafers are used in succession until the desired thickness is reached. Then, using the process, several layers of these gemstones are stacked on top of one another, forming a lens. The fabrication of this lens is often required to fit the appropriate optical path. Therefore, metalenses is combined with capasso in the fabrication of microcapillary lenses: a thin film of gemstone is placed on the bottom of the microcapillary lens to form a solid lens.
The other way that metalenses is employed in the fabrication of optical fibers is for the manufacture of nanoantennas. Like standard antennas, they contain an antenna element and a series of nanometer-sized facets. The facets are made by welding together smaller sized facets called gemstone facets. By utilizing the metalense technique, it is possible to fabricate very thin antenna threads. These are highly directional and are capable of focusing on specific wavelengths: they allow for the transmission of light to be converted into electric signals.
In other applications, the combination of metalenses and capasso is used to focus light to a focus light source. A lens such as this would be used in a variety of industrial applications where focused light is needed. For example, it may be necessary to focus light for machine vision or industrial laser manufacturing. Such a lens may be called a micrometer lens: in its structure, the facets are arranged in a manner that enables the focus of a small laser beam.