Ultra-Thin, Short-Focus, and High-Aperture Metalens for Generating and Detecting Laser Optical Vortices

Abstract

A combined high-aperture metalens in a thin silicon nitride film that consists of two tilted sectored metalenses is considered. Each sector of the metalens consists of a set of binary subwavelength gratings. The diameter of the metalens is 14 μm. Using a time-domain finite difference method, we show that the metalens can simultaneously detect optical vortices with two topological charges −1 and −2, almost over the entire spectrum of visible wavelengths. The metalens can distinguish several wavelengths that are focused at different points in the focal plane due to a 1-nm change in wavelength resulting in a focal spot shift of about 4 nm. When the metalens is illuminated by a Gaussian beam with left-handed circular polarization, two optical vortices with topological charges 1 and 2 are simultaneously formed 6-μm apart at the focal distance of 6 μm.