High-Speed Duplex Free Space Optical Communication System Assisted by a Wide-Field-of-View Metalens

Free space optical communication (FSO) has gained significant attention due to the growing demand for a high information capacity. For FSO between multiple or moving targets, a receiver with a wide angle of acquisition capability is necessary. Traditionally, gimbals and fast steering mirrors have been used, but they are often difficult to make both compact and wide-angle. Here, a novel duplex FSO system is demonstrated, which utilizes a highly compact fiber coupling metalens to receive and transmit signals in a large field of view up to 80°. High coupling efficiency up to 48.8% at a wavelength of 1550 nm is experimentally achieved. The small coupling loss enables the user to modulate and direct the downstream power from the base station back along the same path, saving energy and leaving only one source in the FSO system. The low bit error rate and the open and clear eye diagram results validate the excellent downlink/uplink communication performance of a 10 Gbps FSO system empowered by the metalens. The system exhibits a large field of view, high data rate, compact size, and low power consumption, which meets the size, weight, and power requirement of smart devices.