State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentations, Centre for Optical and Electromagnetic Research, JORCEP, East Building #5, Zijingang Campus, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China.
Department of Electromagnetic Engineering, School of Electrical Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), S-100 44, Stockholm, Sweden.
Sci Rep. 2018 Jan 11;8(1):514. doi: 10.1038/s41598-017-19015-0.
In geometrical optical design, we only need to choose a suitable combination of lenses, prims, and mirrors to design an optical path. It is a simple and classic method for engineers. However, people cannot design fantastical optical devices such as invisibility cloaks, optical wormholes, etc. by geometrical optics. Transformation optics has paved the way for these complicated designs. However, controlling the propagation of light by transformation optics is not a direct design process like geometrical optics. In this study, a novel mixed method for optical design is proposed which has both the simplicity of classic geometrical optics and the flexibility of transformation optics. This mixed method overcomes the limitations of classic optical design; at the same time, it gives intuitive guidance for optical design by transformation optics. Three novel optical devices with fantastic functions have been designed using this mixed method, including asymmetrical transmissions, bidirectional focusing, and bidirectional cloaking. These optical devices cannot be implemented by classic optics alone and are also too complicated to be designed by pure transformation optics. Numerical simulations based on both the ray tracing method and full-wave simulation method are carried out to verify the performance of these three optical devices.
在几何光学设计中，我们只需要选择合适的透镜、棱镜和镜子组合来设计光路。这是工程师们的一种简单而经典的方法。然而，人们无法通过几何光学设计出隐形斗篷、光学虫洞等奇异的光学器件。变换光学为这些复杂的设计铺平了道路。然而，通过变换光学控制光的传播并不是像几何光学那样直接的设计过程。在这项研究中，提出了一种新颖的混合光学设计方法，它既有经典几何光学的简单性，又有变换光学的灵活性。这种混合方法克服了经典光学设计的局限性；同时，它通过变换光学为光学设计提供了直观的指导。使用这种混合方法设计了三种具有奇异功能的新型光学器件，包括非对称传输、双向聚焦和双向隐身。这些光学器件无法仅通过经典光学实现，也过于复杂而无法通过纯变换光学设计。基于光线追踪法和全波模拟法的数值模拟验证了这三种光学器件的性能。
