Integrated Tunable Flat Lenses (TuneFuL)

该提案旨在彻底改变光学中使用的基本组件之一：半导体激光器。这些组件被广泛应用于从高速光通信到激光加工、超灵敏气体传感器、国防工业和科学研究的大量应用中。所有这些应用的共同点是需要聚焦，控制或形状的光束来自激光，这是传统上完成的外部镜头，往往是许多10倍的激光的大小，这通常是几毫米^3的体积，而且往往更昂贵。与此相关的问题是，一旦光束被聚焦或控制，改变它是非常困难和昂贵的。此外，对于许多应用，如传感和防御，人们可能希望扫描整个视场的激光束，以询问或获取广泛区域的信息。最后，激光的光谱纯度在许多这些应用中是至关重要的，在这些应用中必须只有一个单一的发射波长。该提案旨在通过创造一种平面的、电子可控的透镜来以低成本、大众市场的方式解决所有这些问题，这种透镜可以图案化到激光的发射面上。这项提案将应用新兴光学纳米天线领域的令人兴奋的想法，以创建可调谐的纳米天线阵列，配置为平面透镜。它们将首先作为独立设备开发，然后与一系列半导体激光器集成，以创建电子可调谐输出光束，用于聚焦和转向应用，并同时控制激光的光谱纯度。

This proposal aims to revolutionise one of the fundamental components used in optics : the semiconductor laser. These components are used in a huge array of applications from high speed optical communications - they power the internet, to laser machining, ultra sensitive gas sensors, the defence industry and scientific research. Common to all these applications is the requirement to focus, control or shape the beam of light coming from the laser, this is conventionally done with an external lenses which are often many 10's of times the size of the laser, which is typically a few mm^3 in volume, and often much more expensive. Allied to this problem is that once the beam is focused or controlled it is very difficult and expensive to alter it. Moreover, for many applications such as sensing and defence one may want to scan the laser beam across a field of view to interrogate or acquire information from a wide area. Finally, the spectral purity of the laser is critically important in many of these applications where it essential that there is only one single emitted wavelength. This proposal aims to solve all these problems in a low cost, mass market way by creating a flat, electronically controllable lens which can be patterned onto the emitting facet of the laser. This proposal will apply exciting ideas from the emerging field of optical nanoantennas to create tunable nanoantenna arrays configured as flat lenses. They will be first developed as standalone devices and then integrated with a range of semiconductor lasers to create electronically tunable output beams for focusing and steering applications and simultaneous control of the spectral purity of the laser.