Review of Planar Optical System: Lens Based on Metasurfaces

Metalenses, a novel class of advanced planar optical devices based on metasurfaces developed in recent years, enable the design of incident light’s amplitude, phase, and polarization with high degrees of freedom to meet application requirements. This review systematically summarizes the latest research advances in the field of metalenses. It first elucidates their fundamental physical principles and modulation mechanisms. Based on constituent materials, metalenses are categorized into plasmonic and dielectric types. Functionally, they are classified as tunable metalenses, wide-field-of-view (wide-FOV) metalenses, and achromatic metalenses, highlighting some of the most recent progress in the field. This review aims to deliver a systematic overview of metalens technology while proposing novel design paradigms for advanced optical systems.