Integrated Metaform Device Delivers Compact AR/VR Eyewear

A team from the University of Rochester’s Institute of Optics imprinted freeform optics with a metasurface, in a combination of optical technologies that charts a course for a new fabrication method for AR/VR glasses. The metasurface, a silver nanoscale structure on a thin metallic film, conformed to the freeform shape of the optics used in the work, which allowed the researchers to develop an optical component that they call a “metaform.” The metaform defies the conventional laws of reflection, gathering the visible light rays entering an AR/VR eyepiece from all directions and redirecting them directly into the human eye. “Metasurfaces are also called ‘flat optics,’ so writing metasurfaces...