Embedded silicon nanostructures for short-wave-infrared (swir) metaoptics implementation

A method of making a metasurface optic, comprising:

• selecting a design set including a plurality of nanostructure elements that are fabricatable using a lithography process, each nanostructure element being identical in each of their parameters except a same given parameter;
• wherein the plurality of nanostructure elements in the selected design set are truncated cone nanostructures, with each nanostructure element being identical in height to each other nanostructure element but differing from each other nanostructure element by radius, and with an axis of symmetry of each nanostructure being spaced apart from axes of symmetry of adjacent nanostructures by a same given pitch in the metasurface optic after fabrication;
• designing a unit cell comprising a specific arrangement of nanostructures from the selected design set;
• designing a metasurface optic using the unit cell;
• translating the designed metasurface optic into a CAD layout;
• and
• using the CAD layout to fabricate the metasurface optic.

A metasurface optic, consisting of:

• one or more unit cells, each unit cell comprising a specific arrangement of subwavelength nanostructures;
• said nanostructures being truncated cone nanostructures having a same height of between 800 nm and 1100 nm and a sidewall angle selected from 91° to 93°, with a same spacing between axes of symmetry of each truncated cone nanostructure being between 550 nm and 750 nm, wherein a base of certain of the truncated cone nanostructures has a different radius than others of the truncated cone nanostructures, wherein the radii of the truncated cone nanostructures vary between 75 nm and 250 nm with a step size of 1 nm;
• and
• said metasurface optic being introducing a spatially varying phase shift across incident short-wave infrared (SWIR) light waves which have a wavelength of between 1360 nm and 1380 nm.