Broadband transparent and CMOS-compatible flat optics with silicon nitride metasurfaces [Invited]

Metasurface optics is a promising candidate for realizing the next generation of miniaturized optical components. Unlike refractive optics, these devices modify light over a wavelength-scale thickness, changing the phase, amplitude, and polarization. This review details recent developments and state-of-the-art metasurfaces realized using silicon nitride. We emphasize this material as to date it has the lowest refractive index with which metasurfaces have been experimentally demonstrated. The wide band gap of silicon nitride enables reduced absorption over a broad wavelength range relative to its higher index counterparts, providing a CMOS-compatible platform for producing a variety of high efficiency metasurface elements and systems. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement