Planar wide-angle-imaging camera enabled by metalens array

Wide-angle imaging is an important function in photography and projection, but it also places high demands on the design of the imaging components of a camera. To eliminate the coma caused by the focusing of large-angle incident light, traditional wide-angle camera lenses are composed of complex optical components. Here, we propose a planar camera for wide-angle imaging with a silicon nitride metalens array mounted on a CMOS image sensor. By carefully designing proper phase profiles for metalenses with intentionally introduced shifted phase terms, the whole lens array is capable of capturing a scene with a large viewing angle and negligible distortion or aberrations. After a stitching process, we obtained a large viewing angle image with a range of >120 degrees using a compact planar camera. Our device demonstrates the advantages of metalenses in flexible phase design and compact integration, and the prospects for future imaging technology. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement