Manufacturing is progressing towards the utilisation of smart and autonomous manufacturing processes, facilitated by deeply integrated sensors providing rapid feedback, to enable tighter process control and ‘right first-time’ fabrication methods. Optical components are inherently heavy and bulky and consequently so is current optical instrumentation making it unsuitable to provide the in-situ measurements required to fully realise the vision of future manufacturing. Optical metasurfaces, being able to replicate the function of conventional optical elements, offer a step change in optical instrumentation size and weight. Here, we report on our monolithic metasurface confocal sensor that performs all the necessary optical manipulations to perform as an ultra-compact confocal sensor whilst also being rugged against misalignment. We have subsequently built on this approach to develop a tip-tilt displacement sensor which is achieved by interleaving three lenses into a single metasurface, each acting as a chromatic confocal sensor that is offset from each other.
The creation of smart and autonomous manufacturing chains is reliant on the development of suitable sensors to provide the feedback required, improving the quality of the parts made, reducing scrappage and allowing bespoke one-off items to be manufactured right first-time every-time. Optical measurements would seem ideal for just such applications, however the optical instrumentation that is employed to take them is often far too large and heavy for deployment where they would be of most use, and the use of traditional refractive elements limit the size and weight reductions that can be achieved. Here we present our work on using metasurfaces to overcome just such problems, developing a miniaturized chromatic confocal sensor by exploiting the chromatic aberration found with a basic hyperbolic metalens to our advantage. Further we show how the range and resolution of this device can be modified through design, delivering a compact, rapid, and highly practical sensor.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.