Printable Nanocomposite Metalens for High-Contrast Near-Infrared Imaging

Gwanho Yoon, Kwan Kim, Se Um Kim, Seunghoon Han, Heon Lee, Junsuk Rho

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    121 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Printable metalenses composed of a silicon nanocomposite are developed to overcome the manufacturing limitations of conventional metalenses. The nanocomposite is synthesized by dispersing silicon nanoparticles in a thermally printable resin, which not only achieves a high refractive index for high-efficiency metalenses but also printing compatibility for inexpensive manufacturing of metalenses. The synthesized nanocomposite exhibits high refractive index >2.2 in the near-infrared regime, and only 10% uniform volume shrinkage after thermal annealing, so the nanocomposite is appropriate for elaborate nanofabrication compared to commercial high-index printable materials. A 4 mm-diameter metalens operating at the wavelength of 940 nm is fabricated using the nanocomposite and one-step printing without any secondary operations. The fabricated metalens verifies a high focusing efficiency of 47%, which can be further increased by optimizing the composition of the nanocomposite. The printing mold is reusable, so the large-scale metalenses can be printed rapidly and repeatedly. A compact near-infrared camera combined with the nanocomposite metalens is also demonstrated, and an image of the veins underneath human skin is captured to confirm the applicability of the nanocomposite metalens for biomedical imaging.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)698-706
    Number of pages9
    JournalACS nano
    Volume15
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2021 Jan 26

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    This work was financially supported by a Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) grant funded by Samsung Electronics and the National Research Foundation (NRF) grants (NRF-2019R1A2C3003129, CAMM-2019M3A6B3030637, NRF-2019R1A5A8080290, NRF-2018M3D1A1058998) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) of the Korean government. G.Y. acknowledges the NRF fellowship (NRF-2020R1A6A3A01097965) funded by MSIT of the Korean government. H.L. acknowledges the NRF grants (NRF-2019K1A47A02113032, NRF-2020R1A2C3006382) funded by the MSIT and the Technology Innovation program (20000887, N0002310) funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE) of the Korean government. The authors thank Trevon Badloe (POSTECH) for English proofreading.

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2021 American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.

    Keywords

    • dielectric metasurface
    • effective medium approximation
    • large-scale nanofabrication
    • near-infrared camera
    • silicon nanoparticle

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Materials Science
    • General Engineering
    • General Physics and Astronomy

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Printable Nanocomposite Metalens for High-Contrast Near-Infrared Imaging'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this