End-to-end optimization for a wide-field-of-view metalens with an aperture stop

Metalenses have great application potential to realize ultra-compact wide-field-of-view (WFOV) optics for surveillance cameras, industrial vision, and medical imaging. Due to the relatively low fabrication requirement, metalenses with an aperture stop for WFOV have attracted much interest recently. However, most designs for this structure rely on commercial design software or exclude the optimization of the aperture size. This work proposes a design framework for a metalens with an aperture stop based on an end-to-end optimization for WFOV imaging, which achieves joint optimization of aperture diameter, substrate thickness, and metalens phase distribution. Using this framework, a metalens with an aperture that achieves a FOV of 160° in the mid-infrared region is designed and demonstrated by both theoretical calculation and simulation. This work is expected to provide alternative design options for miniaturized WFOV imaging optical systems.