Metalenses
Meta Optical Elements (MOE)
NIL Technology provides custom-made metalens solutions under one roof, from design to mass production.
With metalenses, meta-optical elements, we develop unique solutions that improve the efficiency and performance of optical applications while reducing the complexity and number of lens elements.
NILT makes metalens prototyping for NIR/SWIR/VIS with a fast turnaround time. Read more at:
Introducing NILT and our groundbreaking Meta Optical Elements
Dark field optical microscopy demonstrating lensing effect for a large range of wavelengths. The cover image shows a fresnel metalens, demonstrating pillars down to sub 100 nm diameters with perfect vertical sidewall
Meta optics by NIL Technology
Meta-optics, or metalenses, is a radical new flat lens technology that will disrupt optics used for sensing and imaging in consumer electronics, autonomous vehicles, AR/MR displays, and more.
NIL Technology has a whole process chain under one roof for design, mastering, prototyping, testing and characterization, and manufacturing capabilities of meta optics.
We provide custom-made solutions, ranging from pure metalens- to hybrid solutions. We can characterize metasurfaces for visible and IR applications up to ~2000 nm. Other beam-shaping functions, such as diffusers and fan-out gratings, can also be realized with metasurfaces.
NIL Technology has profound and proven experience designing and developing advanced optics by manufacturing micro-and nano-patterned surface relief structures and more than 50 years of experience of cumulative expertise in thermal and UV NIL.
We leverage our extensive experience as a leader in nanostructured mastering and fast prototyping turnaround to deliver mass production metalens solutions.
Metalens breakthrough with extremely high efficiency
NILT has designed, built, and characterized multiple meta-optical elements (MOE) lenses with 94% absolute efficiency.
The groundbreaking result of 94% absolute efficiency* is demonstrated with a 940 nm NIR lens. The result is a major milestone for the commercial use of metalenses and proves NILT’s MOEs are the first flat lenses that can compete with refractive optics.
The high efficiency makes the MOE lenses ideal for sensing and machine vision applications targeting consumer electronics, industrial, IoT, medical, and automotive markets. These innovative markets will benefit largely from NILT’s MOE optical solutions, where requirements call for high efficiency, excellent performance, lightweight and compact designs.
Read the press release from 12 October 2021 to know more about the metalens efficiency.
NILT meta-optical elements (MOEs) demonstrate the groundbreaking result of 94% absolute efficiency
Image from a near Infrared imaging system using a single meta-optical element surface (1M MOE) designed for 940 nm wavelength. The demonstrated NILT image has excellent resolution for NIR imaging, all the way to the edge, and is comparable to images captured with a multi-element refractive lens.
Flat NIR metalenses
NILT is on a mission to bring revolutionary changes to smartphone cameras by significantly reducing the size and complexity of camera lens systems.
The first demonstration is a 940 nm near-infrared (NIR) wavelength imaging lens with a single metasurface, used for 3D sensing and face recognition in smartphones and driver-monitoring in automobiles.
The single metalens, as we name 1M, is groundbreaking in its form, performance, compactness, and efficiency. It validates the uniqueness of our meta optical elements (MOEs) over traditional refractive lenses.
- Compactness. MOEs are flatter, thinner, and lighter than refractive lenses, having a lens simplicity not demonstrated before.
- Superior. MOE lenses have significantly better imaging quality with a wide field of view, low F-number, high MTF, and high relative illumination, all at a low total track length.
- Cost-efficiency. Assembly costs and integration complexity will be lower.
- Robustness. Silicon on glass-substrate makes for strong, thermally stable lenses.
Read our press release from 31 August 2021 to learn more about our 1M meta optics capabilities.
Combining the best to get the unique solutions
NILT takes optical applications to a new level of performance, efficiency, and compactness by combining refractive, diffractive, and meta-optics. The result is optical design solutions for next-generation sensing and imaging applications.
Mass production is done by nanoimprint (NIL), which takes advantage of the high-resolution and precision offered by electron beam lithography.
What are metalenses?
In 2019, World Economic Forum named metalenses as one of the top 10 emerging technologies. Not without reason. Metalenses have powerful capabilities beyond traditional optical lenses with flat surfaces, reduced thickness, and improved quality across all optical component use cases.
Metalenses are a flat lens technology made by optical components that use metasurfaces to focus light. They can be used in optical applications that take advantage of the flat surface and reduced thickness, compared to classic, curved refractive lenses mainly used in optical devices today.
Meta-optical elements allow further miniaturization in sensors and different imaging devices. Meta optical elements by NILT enable more cost-effective lens systems and lower integration complexity.