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55 views12 pages

Optik 20-2-1617

science

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z.umul9031
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Design of thin–film photonic

metamaterial Lüneburg lens using


analytical approach

Hanhong Gao,1,∗ Baile Zhang,2,3 Steven G. Johnson,4 and


George Barbastathis2,5
1 Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA
2 Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre,

3 Science Drive 2, Singapore 117543, Singapore


3 Division of Physics and Applied Physics, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences,

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 637371, Singapore


4 Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA


5 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA


[email protected]

Abstract: We design an all–dielectric Lüneburg lens as an adiabatic


space–variant lattice explicitly accounting for finite film thickness. We
describe an all–analytical approach to compensate for the finite height of
subwavelength dielectric structures in the pass–band regime. This method
calculates the effective refractive index of the infinite–height lattice from
effective medium theory, then embeds a medium of the same effective index
into a slab waveguide of finite height and uses the waveguide dispersion
diagram to calculate a new effective index. The results are compared with
the conventional numerical treatment – a direct band diagram calculation,
using a modified three–dimensional lattice with the superstrate and substrate
included in the cell geometry. We show that the analytical results are in good
agreement with the numerical ones, and the performance of the thin–film
Lüneburg lens is quite different than the estimates obtained assuming
infinite height.
© 2012 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: (050.6624) Subwavelength structures; (310.0310) Thin films; (230.7400) Waveg-
uides, slab; (110.2760) Gradient–index lenses.

References and links


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#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1617
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effect compensation,” Opt. Express 19, 2257–2265 (2011).
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687–702 (2010).

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1618
1. Introduction
Gradient Index (GRIN) media have been known to offer rich possibilities for light manipu-
lation since at least Maxwell’s time [1]. More recent significant examples are the Lüneburg
lens [2], the Eaton lens [3], and the plethora of imaging and cloaking configurations devised
recently using conformal maps and transformation optics [4–8]. GRIN optics are of course also
commercially available, but the achievable refractive index profiles n(r) are limited generally
to parabolic in the lateral coordinates or to axial without any lateral dependence [9]. There is
an ongoing effort to achieve more general distributions using stacking of photo-exposed poly-
mers [10, 11].
For optics-on-a-chip or integrated optics applications, it is possible to emulate an effective
index distribution n(r) by patterning a substrate with subwavelength structures. If these are
sufficiently smaller than the wavelength, to a good approximation they can be thought of as a
continuum where the effective index is determined by the pattern geometry. For example, one
can create a lattice of alternating dielectric–air with slowly varying period and fixed duty cycle,
or with fixed period but slowly varying duty cycle [12, 13].
If the critical length of the variation is slow enough compared to the lattice constant that the
adiabatic approximation is valid, the lattice dispersion diagram can be used to estimate the local
effective index [12,13]. Refractive indices computed using a 2D approximation are valid for 2D
adiabatically variant metamaterials where the height in the 3rd dimension is much larger than
the wavelength so the assumption of infinite height can be justified. According to this, we have
designed a subwavelength aperiodic nanostructured Lüneburg lens [14, 15]. This lens mimics a
GRIN element with refractive index distribution n(ρ ) = n0 2 − (ρ /R)2 (0 < ρ < R), where
n0 is the ambient index outside the lens region, R is the radius of the lens region and ρ is the
radial polar coordinate with the lens region as origin. The Lüneburg lens focuses an incoming
plane wave from any arbitrary direction to a geometrically perfect focal point at the opposite
edge of the lens [2, 16].
However, most such adiabatically variant structures are fabricated by etching holes or rods
on a thin silicon film, whose height is less than even the optical wavelength [6, 14, 15, 17, 18].
Hence, the infinite height assumption becomes questionable. Moreover, the structures are asym-
metric since typically beneath the structure there is a substrate such as glass, whereas above the
structure is air. Asymmetry also induces a long–wavelength cutoff in the guided modes [19];
therefore the thin–film metamaterial should operate in an intermediate regime where the wave-
length is neither too large nor too small. The problem of asymmetry and finite height have been
acknowledged in the literature on photonic crystals [20–24], where the most common solu-
tion is to compute a full 3D band diagram [25]. Most of them focus on photonic crystal slabs
operating at wavelengths comparable to the periodicity, discussing phenomena such as super–
collimation [26], negative refraction [27], etc. To the best of our knowledge, the same problem
has received insufficient attention in the context of 2D dielectric periodic or aperiodic metama-
terial devices, especially those operating at the propagation regime of the band diagram. It has
been briefly mentioned in [6, 28] without giving a detailed solution.
In our fabricated Lüneburg lens design, thin–film problem is obvious where the experimen-
tal results show dislocated and aberrated focal point [14, 15]. In this paper we re–designed the
Lüneburg lens to include the finite film thickness, improving the estimate of the expected focal
point position. To design such a lens, first we need a method for estimating effective refractive
index of thin–film metamaterials. Several methods have been proposed in the literature. A con-
ventional numerical approach (we refer to it as Direct Band Diagram, DBD) in photonic crystals
derives a 3D lattice cell from the original 2D cell by surrounding a finite–height rod with large
spaces of air above and glass substrate below [25]. Another method takes one unit cell and re-
trieve the refractive index by its reflection and refraction properties [29]. These methods yield

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1619
accurate results but require either 3D band or finite–difference calculations. More heuristic (but
faster) effective–index methods estimate a slab–waveguide effective index first and then use it
to compute a 2D band diagram or effective index [30]. They are generally suitable for struc-
tures with etched substrates. In contrast, our proposal essentially reverses the order of these
steps: we compute an effective index from the 2D cross–section first, and then incorporate it
into a slab–waveguide mode. This is more suitable to the metamaterial regime.
In particular, we propose the following all–analytical method for effective refractive index
calculation. First, we replace the rods with a continuum of a certain effective permittivity εeff2D .

We calculate εeff from 2D lattice of infinite–height rods using second-order effective medium
2D

theory, and then substitute εeff


2D as the permittivity of a slab of finite thickness, acting as an

effective guiding medium, sandwiched between semi-infinite spaces of air above and glass be-
low. The geometry then becomes one of a weakly–guiding waveguide due to the small height
of the effective guiding medium. This weakly–guiding effect modifies the real part of the hor-
izontal wave–vector component, and thus a new effective permittivity εeff 3D for the finite slab of

rods is derived from the waveguide dispersion relationship. We refer to this method as Effective
Guiding Medium (EGM). Comparing with rigorous 3D calculations, our method provides more
physical insights, and is generally faster to compute.
To validate our method, we compare it with the DBD method. It is shown that the results of
both methods are in good agreement.

(a) (b)

Fig. 1. (a) Finite height rod lattice structure investigated in this paper. (b) 2D rod lattice
structure assuming infinite height.

2. Analytical method for effective refractive index estimation


In this paper, without loss of generality, we investigate a silica glass slab covered by a square
constant a = 258 nm) of silicon rods of finite height h = 320 nm, variable radius
lattice (lattice √
r (0 < r < a/ 2) and immersed in air, as illustrated in Fig. 1(a). The free space wavelength
of light is chosen as λ = 6a = 1550 nm. This choice of a is small enough to insure that we
remain in the metamaterial regime and in the propagating regime of the band diagram; and large
enough that the rods can be accurately fabricated by nano–lithography [14, 15] and we do not
reach the long–wavelength cutoff regime for the asymmetric waveguide, as mentioned above.
The dielectric permittivity constants for glass and silicon are εglass = 2.25 and εsilicon = 12.0,
respectively. These media are non–magnetic, so the relative permeability is taken as μ = 1
throughout this paper. The glass slab height is assumed to be much larger than the height of the
rods and the free space wavelength of the light. The corresponding 2D structure with infinite
height rods and without glass substrate is shown in Fig. 1(b). We now proceed to describe
all–analytical method, EGM, for analyzing these two geometries.

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1620
2.1. Effective guiding medium (EGM) method
The EGM method requires analysis of a three–layer structure: (I) air, (II) effective medium
waveguide and (III) glass, as shown in Fig. 2. The effective permittivity of the guiding medium
is calculated from the second–order effective medium theory in 2D which have been derived by
various authors [31, 32]. This theory starts from the effective refractive index of 1D subwave-
length grating composed of air and dielectric with index n. Under TE (electric field parallel to
the grooves) and TM (electric field vertical to the grooves) polarization incidence the effective
index can be summarized, respectively, as [32, 33]
 
π2 T
n2TE = n20TE + f 2 (1 − f )2 (n2 − 1)2 , (1)
3 λ
   2
π2 T 1
nTM = n0TM +
2 2
f (1 − f ) n0TM n0TE 2 − 1 ,
2 2 6 2
(2)
3 λ n
where
 
f
n20TE = f n2 + (1 − f ), n20TM = 1 + (1 − f ) (3)
n2
are the zeroth-order effective refractive indices, T is the period of the grating and f is the
filling factor of the dielectric grooves. The effective indices of corresponding 2D subwavelength
structures are then estimated as a combination of 1D structures [32, 33]

n2D−TE = 1 − f + f n2TE , (4)
  
n2TE
n2D−TM = (1 − f ) + f n2TM + /2 (5)
n2TE (1 − f ) + f

for both TE and TM polarizations. Note that TE and TM polarizations mentioned in this paper
are an approximation since the fields are not purely polarized in 3D structures. A more exact
way to describe them is TE–like/TM–like, where electrical field is mostly parallel/vertical to
the grooves [25]. However, this is still an approximation because the waveguide is asymmetric
so there is no horizontal mirror symmetric plane. The second–order terms used in Eqs. (1)
and (2) better approximate the effective index in the case that the wavelength is not very large
comparing with size of unit cell, e.g. λ = 6a used in this paper. Most current metamaterial
device designs are using the zeroth–order approximation only [6], even when the unit cell size
is not far smaller than the operational wavelength. This is fine for those devices where high
accuracy results are not important. However, for devices such as Lüneburg lens, all waves are
focusing to a single point so light manipulation is more challenging. Therefore, more precise
effective index prediction is needed and second–order corrections are included.
The dispersion relation of the effective guiding medium, i.e. the relationship between kz and
ω , is governed by the guidance condition of an asymmetric dielectric waveguide for both TE
and TM polarizations [34]

 
εII kIIy (εIII kz2 − εI ω 2 /c2 + εI kz2 − εIII ω 2 /c2 )
(TE :) tan(kIIy h) =   ≡ FTE (kIIy h), (6)
εI εIII kIIy
2 − ε 2 k2 − ε ω 2 /c2 k2 − ε ω 2 /c2
II z I z III

 
kIIy ( kz2 − εI ω 2 /c2 + kz2 − εIII ω 2 /c2 )
(TM :) tan(kIIy h) =   ≡ FTM (kIIy h), (7)
2 −
kIIy kz2 − εI ω 2 /c2 kz2 − εIII ω 2 /c2

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1621
Fig. 2. Effective guiding medium (EGM) approximation of 2D finite height rod lattice
structure.

20 15
tan(kIIyh)
10 F(kIIyh),ω3
10
tan(k h), F(k h)

tan(kIIyh), F(kIIyh)
F(kIIyh),ω4
IIy

0 0
IIy

tan(kIIyh)
−5
−10 F(kIIyh),ω1
−10
F(k h),ω
IIy 2

−20 −15
0 pi/4 pi/2 3*pi/4 pi 5*pi/4 3*pi/2 0 pi/4 pi/2 3*pi/4 pi 5*pi/4 3*pi/2
kIIyh k h
IIy

(a) (b)

Fig. 3. Graphical solutions of wave guidance condition [Eq. (6)&(7)] for TE (a) and TM
(b) polarizations. Blue and red lines are the left and right hand sides of these equations,
respectively. Operating frequencies ω1 = 0.11 × 2π c/a, ω2 = 0.16 × 2π c/a, ω3 = 0.14 ×
2π c/a and ω4 = 0.18 × 2π c/a. Rod radius r = 0.50a.


where kz = εII ω 2 /c2 − kIIy
2 is the phase–matched propagation constant. These equations can

be solved by a graphical method and an example is illustrated in Fig. 3. It is observed that one
and only one intersection is obtained for each frequency, meaning that only one fundamental
mode is supported. Full dispersion relations kz (ω ) are shown in the following section.
The EGM method described above is compared with the conventional DBD method. To
apply the DBD method, we need to calculate the band diagram of the 3D super cell shown in
Fig. 4(a). The supercell height is taken as large as H = 20a to better emulate the real structure of
Fig. 1(a), where the air and glass spaces tend to infinity. In other words, we seek to minimize the
interference between neighboring unit cells along the vertical (y) direction. We used the MIT
Photonic–Bands (MPB) mode solver [35] to calculate the dispersion diagram. In Figs. 4(b)–
4(c) we show an example MPB result for our chosen lattice and the specific value r = 0.5a, for
temporal frequency ω = 1/6 × 2π c/a. From Fig. 4(b) we observe that for the chosen values of r
and ω , the isofrequency contour [25] is almost a circle, indicating that this unit cell is isotropic.
Therefore, when using DBD in this particular geometry, it is sufficient to consider kz (ω ) only.
However, this is not generally true in other geometries as r or ω increase.
Figure 4(c) shows the mode shape for the same geometry. It can be seen that the field is
effectively concentrated near the silicon rod portion of the cell. The relative intensities at two
horizontal cell boundaries y = ±H/2 were 5.6 × 10−6 and 3.8 × 10−6 at the top and bottom,
respectively, compared to the peak value that occurred at y = 159 nm from the rod base. This

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1622
validates our choice of H as sufficiently large.
Comparing with the DBD method, the EGM method can provide deeper physical insights
with all–analytical solutions, and is generally faster since it avoids solving numerical electro-
magnetic solutions in 3D.

0.5 0.2
0.1 0.
8 19 4
5 0.
0.16667 21 0.
0.4 22
0.1 0.1 5
0.15 66 0.
67 8 19
5
0.3 0.135 0.1 0.2

kx (2π/a)
5 1
0.12 0.1

0.
3

16
0. 7
0.105 0.1 5 0.1

18
66
0.2 2 95
0.09

0.1 .135
0.07

0. 0.09

5
5

0
10

0 .1 6
0.1

0.
18
0.12

66 7
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4
k (2π/a)
z

(a) (b) (c)

Fig. 4. (a) The supercell used in the DBD method for the finite height rod lattice structure.
(b) Isofrequency contour of the supercell with r = 0.50a where the first band only is shown.
Labels on the lines denote the corresponding normalized frequency ω a/2π c. The bold blue
line corresponds to the wavelength λ = 6a used in this paper. (c) Field distribution of the
waveguide slab at a particular x slice. Color shading denotes magnetic field (Hy ) distribution
and black contours illustrate silicon rods.

2.2. Effective refractive index and rod radius relationship


In this section, the relationship between the effective refractive index and rod radius is calcu-
lated. The results of EGM method are compared with the ones obtained from DBD method.
Figure 5(a) shows the dispersion relation of the finite–height rod lattice calculated with both
DBD and EGM methods, as well as with the 2D (infinite rod height) assumption, for rod radius
r = 0.5a. Based on the dispersion relation, effective refractive indices for unit cells with differ-
ent rod radii are calculated as neff = ckz /ω , shown in Fig. 5(b). The results given by the DBD
and EGM methods are in good agreement with each other, with maximum percentage errors
of 7.3% and 6.0% for 2D and 3D cases, respectively. It is observed that the effective refractive
indices of the finite–height rods are significantly different than those assuming infinite height.
This is to be expected due to weak guidance: as can been seen in Fig. 4(c), a large portion of
the field extends outside the rods to spaces of air and substrate. When the rod radii are below
certain values (0.17a for TE and 0.35a for TM), the propagation modes are not guided so the
effective indices are not shown. The discontinuities observed in the 2D effective index curves
for DBD method beyond certain values of rod radii (0.40a for TE and 0.49a for TM) result
from the emergence of a photonic crystal bandgap at these values. At this frequency range,
even though the 2D infinite–height lattice is within the bandgap, the confined (slab waveguide)
geometry is still propagating; this is because the light is mostly outside the dielectric region, so
propagation takes place in the free space (hence the lower index). To calculate the propagation
constant in this regime, we still need an effective index value and EGM provides it (it turns out
to be large than 3, typically).

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1623
3.5 2D TE DBD
DBD
0.3 EGM 2D TM DBD
2D lattice 3D TE DBD
3
0.25 3D TM DBD
Glass line 2D TE EGM
ω (2πc/a)
0.2 2.5
2D TM EGM

n
3D TE EGM
0.15
2 3D TM EGM
0.1 Silicon line
1.5
0.05

0 1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
kz (2π/a) r (a)

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. (a) Comparison between the dispersion relation for finite–height silicon rod lattice
[Fig. 1(a)] calculated from the EGM and DBD method, and the dispersion relation for
infinite–height 2D rod lattice [Fig. 1(b)]. For each case, the two lowest bands representing
the TM and TE modes are shown. (b) Relationship between effective refractive index and
rod radius calculated from both methods, compared with the relationship for infinite–height
2D rod lattice. Free space wavelength of light is λ = 6a = 1550 nm.

3. Optimal design of the subwavelength Lüneburg lens


We re–design and numerically verify the subwavelength Lüneburg lens [2,14,15,36], which was
previously designed under 2D assumption. Here, we still design the Lüneburg lens as a structure
consisting of finite–height rods with adiabatically changing radius r across the lattice
 of fixed
constant a. At each coordinate ρ , we emulate the Lüneburg distribution n(ρ ) = n0 2 − (ρ /R)2
by choosing the rod radius r at coordinate ρ from Fig. 5(b) such that n3D eff = n(ρ ), as opposed to
using n2D
eff = n( ρ ). The design has to be carried out separately for the TE and TM polarizations.
The ambient index is chosen as n0 = 1.53.
Figure 6 illustrates the lens structures and the corresponding 3D finite–difference time–
domain (FDTD) simulation results for the actual adiabatically variant thin–film nanostructured
Lüneburg lens performed by MIT Electromagnetic Equation Propagation (MEEP) [37]. The
3D model used for FDTD consists of a rectangular box of size 41a × 24a × 41a which contains
perfectly matched layers on both sides of each dimension. The radius of the lens is chosen as
15a. With plane wave illumination, almost diffraction–limited focal points at the edge can be
observed for both TE and TM polarizations. For a more computationally efficient and intuitive
representation we also ray–traced the field inside the Lüneburg structure using the adiabatic
Hamiltonian method [12, 13]. The ray position q and momentum p are obtained by solving the
two sets of coupled ordinary differential equations

dq ∂ H dp ∂H
= , =− , (8)
dσ ∂ p dσ ∂q

where H(q, p) ≡ ω (ρ , k) is obtained from the dispersion diagram at each coordinate |q| = ρ
and for k ≡ p. Ray tracing results are superimposed in Fig. 6 with FDTD results, and are seen
to be in good agreement. Furthermore, as a comparison, similar thin–film Lüneburg lens is
designed using the DBD method and simulation results are shown in Fig. 7. It is observed that
results of the all–analytical EGM method design agree with those from the DBD method.
In Section 2.1 we mentioned the second–order effective medium theory for better approxi-
mation of the effective index when the wavelength is not significantly larger than the size of
unit cell. To illustrate the importance of these second–order terms, we designed a thin–film

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1624
15

10

x (a)
0

−5

−10

−15

−15 −10 −5 0 5 10 15 20
z (a)

(a) (b)

15

10

5
x (a)

−5

−10

−15

−15 −10 −5 0 5 10 15 20
z (a)

(c) (d)

Fig. 6. (a) Top view and side view of the thin–film subwavelength Lüneburg lens designed
by EGM method for TE mode and (b) the corresponding 3D FDTD and Hamiltonian ray
tracing results. (c) Top view and side view for TM mode and (d) the corresponding 3D
FDTD and ray tracing results. Red circles outline the edge of Lüneburg lens, where radius
R = 30a. Blue lines are the ray tracing results and color shading denotes the field [Hy for
(b) and Ey for (d)] distribution, where red is positive and blue is negative.

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1625
15

10

x (a)
0

−5

−10

−15

−15 −10 −5 0 5 10 15 20
z (a)

(a) (b)

15

10

5
x (a)

−5

−10

−15

−15 −10 −5 0 5 10 15 20
z (a)

(c) (d)

Fig. 7. Structure and the corresponding 3D FDTD and Hamiltonian ray tracing for the
thin–film subwavelength Lüneburg lens shown in Fig. 6, but designed by the DBD method
instead.

Lüneburg lens using the EGM method, but the second–order terms were neglected when es-
timating the effective indices. The FDTD and ray–tracing results are shown in Fig. 8. The
performance of the lens is degraded with aberrations and shifted focal position. Note that to
clearly illustrate the focal points, we extended the size of the 3D FDTD model in z direction to
61a.
To compare the redesigned lens (3D, finite height) with the original design (2D, infinite
height), we repeated the design using the values of refractive indices predicted by the dispersion
relation of the infinite–height rod lattice (see Fig. 5(b) blue and red solid curves). In this case,
we are forced to use TM polarization only because the TE polarization reaches the bandgap for
relatively small value of r, not leaving enough room to implement the Lüneburg profile with
rod radius r large enough to be robust to practical lithography and etching methods (in our
experiment, this requires r ≥ 0.27a [14, 15]). Also, for better illustration, the size of 3D FDTD
model is modified to 41a × 24a × 101a. It can be observed from the FDTD and Hamiltonian
ray–tracing results shown in Fig. 9 that the focal point is outside the lens edge and it is strongly
aberrated. This is in good agreement with the experimental results of the original design [14,
15].

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1626
15

10

x (a)
0

−5

−10

−15
0 10 20 30 40
z (a)

(a) (b)

15

10

5
x (a)

−5

−10

−15
0 10 20 30 40
z (a)

(c) (d)

Fig. 8. Structure and the corresponding 3D FDTD and Hamiltonian ray tracing for the thin–
film subwavelength Lüneburg lens shown in Fig. 6, but designed using the EGM method
without second–order terms when estimating the effective refractive indices.

15

10

5
x (a)

−5

−10

−15
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
z (a)

Fig. 9. FDTD and Hamiltonian ray–tracing results of the subwavelength Lüneburg lens
made of finite height silicon rods, but designed assuming infinite height. The color conven-
tions are the same as in Figs. 6(b) and 6(d).

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1627
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Lei Tian for useful discussions and Justin W. Lee for setting up the com-
putation server. Financial support was provided by Singapore’s National Research Foundation
through the Singapore–MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre and the
Air Force Office of Scientific Research MURI program on Nanomembranes under contract No.
FA9550-08-1-0379.

#158433 - $15.00 USD Received 21 Nov 2011; revised 16 Dec 2011; accepted 18 Dec 2011; published 10 Jan 2012
(C) 2012 OSA 16 January 2012 / Vol. 20, No. 2 / OPTICS EXPRESS 1628

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