近日，中国科学院长春光学精密机械与物理研究所的王建立与德国卡尔斯鲁厄理工学院的Jan G. Korvink等人合作并取得一项新进展。经过不懈努力，他们成功构建基于大口径同心环超构透镜的便携式天文观测系统。相关研究成果已于2025年1月1日在国际知名学术期刊《光：科学与应用》上发表。

超透镜相较于传统笨重透镜的核心优势在于其体积小、重量轻。然而，随着超透镜的应用场景拓展到宏观光学成像领域，对大口径超透镜的需求增加与设计加工成本同步上升之间产生了矛盾。

为了满足直径达到105λ量级的超透镜应用需求，本文提出了一种新型固定高度同心环超透镜的设计方法。在该方法中，受加工工艺限制，基于不同的拓扑结构构建了一个亚波长二维单元库，并据此组装出超透镜的整体截面。与全局结构优化相比，这种方法在计算资源和时间消耗上减少了几个数量级，同时保持了几乎相同的聚焦效率。

据此，研究人员开发了一款设计波长为632.8纳米、直径为46.8毫米的同心环超透镜，并构建了一个由孔径光阑和超透镜组成的准远心望远镜系统，实现了20°视场内的高分辨率检测。在后续实验中，研究人员定量分析和测试了超透镜相机的独特弱偏振依赖性和窄带适应性，最终获得了优异的成像结果。这项研究工作不仅保证了窄带光学性能，还促进了基于超透镜的望远镜系统的简化和轻量化，进一步推动了大口径超透镜在天文观测领域的深入应用。

附：英文原文

Title: Portable astronomical observation system based on large-aperture concentric-ring metalens

Author: Wang, Jianli, Deng, Yongting, Wang, Chengmiao, Lin, Yu, Han, Yeming, Liu, Junchi, Liu, Xiufeng, Li, Hongwen, Korvink, Jan G., Deng, Yongbo

Issue&Volume: 2025-01-01

Abstract: The core advantage of metalenses over traditional bulky lenses lies in their thin volume and lightweight. Nevertheless, as the application scenarios of metalenses extend to the macro-scale optical imaging field, a contradiction arises between the increasing demand for large-aperture metalenses and the synchronous rise in design and processing costs. In response to the application requirements of metalens with diameter reaching the order of 10⁴λ or even 10⁵λ, this paper proposes a novel design method for fixed-height concentric-ring metalenses, wherein, under the constraints of the processing technology, a subwavelength 2D building unit library is constructed based on different topological structures, and the overall cross-section of the metalens is assembled. Compared to global structural optimization, this approach reduces computational resources and time consumption by several orders of magnitude while maintaining nearly identical focusing efficiency. As a result, a concentric-ring metalens with a designed wavelength of 632.8nm and a diameter of 46.8mm was developed, and a quasi-telecentric telescope system composed of aperture stop and metalens was constructed, achieving high-resolution detection within a 20° field of view. In the subsequent experiments, the unique weak polarization dependence and narrowband adaptability of the meta-camera are quantitatively analyzed and tested, and excellent imaging results were finally obtained. Our work not only ensures the narrowband optical performance but also promotes the simplicity and light weight of the metalens based telescopic system, which further advances the deep application of large-diameter metalenses in the field of astronomical observation.

DOI: 10.1038/s41377-024-01656-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-024-01656-2