SBIR Phase I: Metasurface Optical Waveguides for Compact and Scalable Optical Systems

The broader impact/commercial impacts of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is in replacing conventional optical systems, like lenses, mirrors, or their combinations, that need to be individually produced, assembled, aligned, and placed within a housing or enclosure. Such optical systems are used in smart phones, consumer wearables devices, biometric identification, medical diagnostics, autonomous navigation, robotics, remote sensing, etc.

This project will develop novel optical devices that will overcome the limitations of traditional optical systems with respect to weight, size, scalability, and cost. The system will be composed of tiny features that interact with light on a sub-wavelength scale. Development of the novel optical devices will directly benefit U.S. consumers.

The innovation is expected to transform a variety of optical and photonic systems into lighter, more affordable, and more compact solutions that can be produced in large volumes.

This Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I project develops innovative metasurface optical waveguiding devices (MOWGs) that control light on a subwavelength level and will provide significant practical benefits over a variety of conventional optical systems. Conventional optical systems contain assemblies of optical components, such as refractive lenses, mirrors, or their combinations, that need to be individually fabricated, assembled, aligned, and placed within a housing or enclosure.

That results in relatively bulky and heavy optical assemblies that have limited potential for cost reduction and scalability. Metasurfaces represent a new class of optical surface that control optical fields on the sub-wavelength level. Novel metasurface topologies that can be applied to optical waveguides will be explored.

This SBIR Phase I project is intended to overcome the limitations of traditional optical systems with respect to weight, size, scalability, and cost by employing metasurface assemblies containing waveguiding structures.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.