Compact meta-optics infrared camera based on a polarization-insensitive metalens with a large field of view

Metasurfaces have recently emerged as a crucial tool because they achieve spherical-aberration-free focusing when exposed to normal incident light. Nevertheless, these metasurfaces often exhibit considerable coma when sub-jected to oblique incident light, thereby limiting their imaging field of view. In light of this, our study presents the design and an experimental demonstration of a polarization -insensitive, large-field-of-view metalens that uses a silicon metasurface. The metalens is specifically tailored to the long-wavelength infrared region and possesses a numerical aperture of 0.81, which is capable of focusing light at incident angles up to +/- 80 degrees. Moreover, we successfully build a meta -optics camera by integrating the large field-of-view metalens on top of an image sensor, thus enabling wide-angle thermal imaging of practical scenes. This research provides new, to the best of our knowledge, insights for designing and realiz-ing large-field-of-view optical systems and holds promise for applications in night vision imaging and security monitor-ing. (c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group