Biomimicry-Gradient-Based Algorithm as Applied to Photonic Devices Design: Inverse Design of Flat Plasmonic Metalenses

Abstract

The classical adjoint-based topology optimization (TO) method, based on the use of a random continuous dielectric function as design variable distribution is known to be one of the timely efficient and fast optimization methods enable a very high performance functional optical devices. It relies on the computation of the gradient of a figure of merit (FOM) with respect to the design parameters. The gradient of the figure of merit (FOM) may then be used to update the design vector element in several senarios. One of the most common use scenario consists of updating simultaneously all the design parameter vector elements. In a linear problem case involving a simply convex FOM-function shape, using the gradient information, it is a relatively easy to reach an optimal solution. In the case of constrained and non linear problems stated in an infinite and indeterminate design space, the conventional TO, a local optimizer, may require multiple restarts, with multiple initial points and multiple runs. The algorithm strongly depends on the initial conditions. In this paper, we report a global-like optimizer inspired by a wolf pack hunting, enabling efficient design of metasurfaces through their geometrical parameters. We apply the method to design a non periodic metasurface consisting of plasmonic metalenses, enabling a high energy flow focusing on a well-defined 2D focus spot. Numerical results show that the proposed inverse design method has a low sensitivity to initial conditions. In our design method of metalens, we optimize the full micro device at once, and demonstrate that the proposed method may provide both symmetric and more creative unexpected asymmetric on-axis metalenses even though under a normal illumination.