Flat lens offers a perfect image

“Instead of creating phase delays as light propagates through the thickness of the material, you can create an instantaneous phase shift right at the surface of the lens. It’s extremely exciting.”

Capasso and his collaborators at SEAS create the flat lens by plating a very thin wafer of silicon with a nanometer-thin layer of gold. Next, they strip away parts of the gold layer to leave behind an array of V-shaped structures, evenly spaced in rows across the surface. When Capasso’s group shines a laser onto the flat lens, these structures act as nanoantennas that capture the incoming light and hold onto it briefly before releasing it again.