Technological advancements have enabled the active control of electromagnetic waves. Metalenses, known for their precision in wavefront shaping and functional versatility, represent a breakthrough in optical modulation. This study addresses the challenge of achieving dual-wavelength multifunctionality in metalens design. We developed and experimentally validated metalenses with polarization dual-function multiplexing at discrete mid-wave infrared wavelengths, demonstrating high phase fidelity and functional versatility. In addition, the proposed design method was extended to long-wave infrared wavelengths, showcasing its adaptability to different application scenarios. The application of spatial multiplexing significantly enhanced the performance of the metalenses, providing a promising solution for efficient and compact optoelectronic devices.
Metalenses have excellent modulation capabilities in terms of phase, amplitude, and polarization of light, significantly reducing the size and complexity of imaging systems, and showing great application prospects. However, like traditional optical meta-atoms, ordinary metalenses suffer from a significant chromatic aberration problem because it is difficult to design the phase distribution for different wavelengths on a single-layer metalens. To address this, various methods for correcting chromatic aberration in metalenses have been proposed and demonstrated, such as spatial multiplexing, material hybridization, and increasing the cross-sectional diversity of metalens meta-atoms. In this paper, a novel design method is used, which expands the parameter space by increasing the cross-sectional diversity of the metalens meta-atoms to provide the phase required for focusing different wavelengths, combined with particle swarm optimization for phase compensation. The multi-level metalens designed by this method achieves a constant and approximate focal length in the visible wavelength range of λ = 450–650 nm, with a polarization-independent absolute focusing efficiency of about 17%, and a numerical aperture (NA) of 0.31 for a lens diameter of 100 μm. This improves the imaging quality.