Conformable holographic metasurfaces for industrial imaging and sensing applications

光子亚表面是一种纳米结构的薄膜，可以设计成表现出定制的光散射。反射光和透射光的相位、幅度、偏振和传播方向几乎可以随意控制。当用于记录全息信息时，光子亚表面比标准的计算全息器件显示出许多优点，主要与其超薄的形状因子(比传统的衍射光学元件薄1000倍)和像素的亚波长尺寸有关。此外，全息亚表面可以在柔性和可整合的衬底上实现，这使它们成为实验室外实施的理想平台。Ceres Holographics是一家领先的汽车应用全息解决方案公司，在该项目中与合成光学和有机半导体集团合作，使超表面技术向工业、现实世界的应用又迈进了一步。该项目的目的是为增强视觉应用开发一种可行的、可持续的全息变形表面的设计和制造途径。学生将学习如何为非平面形状设计全息亚表面，并开发基于纳米光刻和纳米压印的可扩展制造技术。此外，学生将利用变形表面的独特属性来嵌入传感功能，以便全息成像将取决于特定的环境条件。这项工作将得到一项广泛的实验活动的补充，并利用圣安德鲁斯大学物理和天文学院和Ceres全息术的现有设施完成。

Photonic metasurfaces are nano-structured films that can be designed to exhibit tailored light scattering. The phase, amplitude, polarisation and propagation of direction of the reflected and transmitted light can be controlled virtually at will. When used to record holographic information, photonic metasurfaces present many advantages over standard computer-generated holographic devices, mostly related to their ultrathin form factor (a thousand times thinner than conventional diffraction optical elements) and subwavelength dimension of the pixels. Moreover, holographic metasurfaces can be realised in flexible and conformable substrates, which makes them the ideal platform for out of the lab implementation. Ceres Holographics is a leading company in holographic solutions for automotive applications and in this project has partnered with the groups of Synthetic Optics and Organic Semiconductors to take the metasurface technology one step closer to industrial, real-world applications. The aim of the project is to develop a viable and sustainable design and manufacturing pathway for flexible holographic metasurfaces for augmented vision applications. The student will learn how to design holographic metasurfaces for non-flat shapes and develop a scalable fabrication technique based on nanolithography and nanoimprinting. Additionally, the student will exploit the unique properties of metasurfaces to embed sensing capabilities, so that the holographic imaging would depend on specific environmental conditions. This work will be complemented by an extensive experimental activity and completed exploiting the facilities available in the School of Physics and Astronomy of the University of St Andrews and at Ceres Holographics.