Immersion graded index optics: theory, design, and prototypes

Vaidya, Nina and Solgaard, Olav (2022) Immersion graded index optics: theory, design, and prototypes. Microsystems & Nanoengineering, 8 (1), [69]. (doi:10.1038/s41378-022-00377-z).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Immersion optics enable creation of systems with improved optical concentration and coupling by taking advantage of the fact that the luminance of light is proportional to the square of the refractive index in a lossless optical system. Immersion graded index optical concentrators, that do not need to track the source, are described in terms of theory, simulations, and experiments. We introduce a generalized design guide equation which follows the Pareto function and can be used to create various immersion graded index optics depending on the application requirements of concentration, refractive index, height, and efficiency. We present glass and polymer fabrication techniques for creating broadband transparent graded index materials with large refractive index ranges, (refractive index ratio)2 of ~2, going many fold beyond what is seen in nature or the optics industry. The prototypes demonstrate 3x optical concentration with over 90% efficiency. We report via functional prototypes that graded-index-lens concentrators perform close to the theoretical maximum limit and we introduce simple, inexpensive, design-flexible, and scalable fabrication techniques for their implementation.

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Accepted/In Press date: 23 February 2022

e-pub ahead of print date: 27 June 2022

Published date: 27 June 2022

Additional Information: Funding Information: Fabrication work was done in the flexible clean room in Spilker, Stanford University, and we are thankful for valuable discussions and help with custom fabrication setups from Thomas E. Carver. We are grateful to Prof. Reinhold H. Dauskardt for his advice on material science. Thanks to Michael J. Mandella for help with FRED (optical simulation software used to design AGILE). We thank Timothy R. Brand for the fabrication help in the crystal shop. Thanks to Evan Scouros for work on ray trajectory theory. We are thankful for research discussions with J Provine on fabrication, Skip Huckaby on anodic bonding, Prof. Robert S. Feigelson for advice on hot pressing of glasses, and Kiarash Zamani Aghaie for help with optical mode theory. We thank GCEP (Global Climate and Energy Project) for funding and special acknowledgement to Stanford DARE (Diversifying Academia, Recruiting Excellence) fellowship. Part of the work was performed at the Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF), supported by the National Science Foundation award ECCS-2026822.