Freeform Optics and Metasurfaces Create Compact AR/VR Eyewear

A team from the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics imprinted freeform optics with a metasurface, in a combination of optical technologies that charts a course for a new fabrication method for AR/VR glasses. The metasurface, a silver nanoscale structure on a thin metallic film, conformed to the freeform shape of the optics used in the work, which allowed the researchers to develop an optical component that they call a “metaform.”

The metaform defies the conventional laws of reflection, gathering the visible light rays entering an AR/VR eyepiece from all directions and redirecting them directly into the human eye.

“Metasurfaces are also called ‘flat optics,’ so writing metasurfaces on freeform optics is creating an entirely new type of optical component,” said Jannick Rolland, the Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering and director of the Center for Freeform Optics.