NIL Technology has long and thorough experience in masters. We have refined the manufacturing processes to obtain slanted gratings with high planarity of the slant surfaces, horizontal top and bottom planes, and sharp corners between the surfaces. Slanted grating masters from NILT do not suffer from rounded corners, warping of the planes, non-parallelism of the slant planes and non-horizontal top and bottom planes, as is the case of less advanced and optimized processed masters. Consequently, masters from NILT provides increased light control, less uncontrolled light scattering and in general second to none performance and efficiency.
NILT has designed, built, and characterized multiple meta optical element (MOE) lenses with 94% absolute efficiency. The groundbreaking result of 94% absolute efficiency is demonstrated with a 940 nm NIR lens. The result is a major milestone for the commercial use of metalenses and proves NILT’s MOEs are the first flat lenses that can compete with refractive optics. The high efficiency makes the MOE lenses ideal for sensing and machine vision applications targeting consumer electronics, industrial, IoT, medical, and automotive markets. These innovative markets will benefit largely from NILT’s MOE optical solutions, where requirements call for high efficiency, excellent performance, lightweight and compact designs. MOEs have enormous potential. MOEs can disrupt numerous applications, such as simplified Time-of-Flight (ToF) systems with high relative illumination and ultra-compact NIR cameras used for eye-tracking and driver monitoring. Previously, the main barrier has been the low efficiency of manufactured metalenses. This barrier is now finally removed. MOEs from NILT are ready to be delivered and mass-produced to customers’ specifications. They can be designed with complex phase functions, and multi-MOE stacked components can be designed to meet required specifications. The MOE itself is made in silicon on a glass substrate, making it strong, rigid, reliable, and thermally stable. It can be customized for wavelengths in NIR and SWIR bands.
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A desktop nanoimprint tool for easy replication of micro- and nanoscale structures
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NIL Technology is specialized in diffractive optical elements (DOEs). We make diffractive optics that are customized to your specific needs. This enables you to efficiently shape light and consequently improve the overall performance and flexibility of your products. Our selection of diffractive optics includes blazed, slanted, 1D and 2D gratings, fan-out diffractive beam splitters, and diffractive diffusers. NIL Technology offers you DOEs that are customized to your specific needs. We have made diffractive optics for many years and have extensive experience in complex and high-precision DOEs. We can offer rapid turnaround times for our customers, having design, testing, and manufacturing facilities within NILT. Through high accuracy in manufacturing, we are able to reach high-performance optics. Some of the benefits of our DOEs include: - High definition/pattern fidelity - High aspect ratios - Steep sidewalls - Multi-levels - High resolution - Low roughness With NILT, you can expect improved diffraction efficiency and better stray light suppression, among other key benefits. Contact us to get an overall understanding of how it will affect your optical applications and product performance by working with NIL Technology. We can be your partner throughout the whole product journey, from idea to design and production. Precise We have high-quality production methods and years of experience with high-precision diffraction structures Adaptable Easily replace or combine refractive optics with diffractive optics Energy-efficient Shape and divide laser beams to control intensity Custom-made Customized to your specific needs and specifications Effective Be able to precisely control the phase across the aperture and make complex intensity Diffractive optical elements (DOEs) are optical components made of structures with dimensions comparable to the wavelength in complex arrangements. Based on the types of application, DOEs are capable of manipulating an incident light’s phase and amplitude with the purpose of creating a desired output pattern with a unique functionality. Diffractive optics with a given function follows the same principles as a diffractive grating with a repetitive pattern of two or more levels, formed on the surface of a substrate – typically etched into the surface of a hard substrate or replicated in a polymer on the surface of a substrate or made purely in polymer. The depth of the pattern is in the order of the wavelength of the light, specific to the application, adjusted to the refractive index of the material of the DOE. Nowadays, with the aid of high accuracy advanced micro and nanolithography fabrication techniques, diffractive optics can be engineered with feature sizes ranging from a few hundred nanometers.
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Single-surface 2-in-1 dot-projector for driver-monitoring and depth-sensing Our demonstration systems highlight the remarkable capabilities of our record-breaking single-surface metalens dot projectors, unveiled in October 2023. These innovative projectors consist of a single surface adept at collimating light and projecting precise dot patterns. The use of a single surface not only streamlines the module design but also facilitates the creation of exceptionally compact dot-projector modules. We are showcasing three distinct configurations with fields of illumination (FOI) of 70° x 40°, 70° x 70°, and a record-setting 144° x 70°, all demonstrated live. These projectors boast over 70% efficiency, less than 10% dot uniformity error, and high contrast ratios exceeding 40:1. Dot projection optics are made with metaoptic according to customer specifications. The metaoptic are single surface (1M); typically used for 3D sensing (structured light and time of flight) for face unlock, short distance Lidar, etc. NILT can design, prototype and manufacture metaoptic to state-of-the-art standards. - Dot projection designed for stand alone, or to be used with external collimator - Design freedom to match desired FoI with perfect N x M tiling - Single-surface element allow for extreme miniaturization of optical system - Extreme FOI possible - Dot projectors can be designed both for collimated as well as divergent light sources with a high number of possible use cases - All dot projectors can be optimized to customer requirements Projected dot pattern with invisible horizontal tiling See examples below: 1. Dot projector 70×40 degree 2. Dot projector 70×70 degree 3. Dot projector 144×70 degree 4. Collimator Demonstrated specifications: - Overall performance depends on design specs - Diagonal FoI above 144° demonstrated - Efficiency above 80% demonstrated for single surface combined collimation/fan-out function - Uniformity error below 5% demonstrated - Contrast ratio above 60:1 demonstrated for fan-out of a collimated beam, 90% efficiency is demonstrated NILT meta dot projector (left: module, right: element) 1. Dot projector 70 x 40 degree The dot projector has a 3 x 3 tiling, FOI of 70⁰ x 40⁰,efficiency above 70%, and dot uniformity-error <10%, making it an ideal platform for most 3D sensing applications where low power consumption is critical. Dot projector λ [nm] FOI (XY) [⁰] Tiling Number of spots Efficiency [%] Dot uniformity error [%] Contrast ratio A 940 70x40 3x3 2,952 82.9 8.5 60:1 B 940 70x40 3x3 2,925 78.7 3.7 60:1 2. Dot projector 70 x 70 degree The dot projector has a 3 x 5 tiling, FOI of 70⁰ x 70⁰ and demonstrates an efficiency above 70% even with its relatively larger FOI. λ [nm] FOI (XY) [⁰] Tiling Number of spots Efficiency [%] Dot uniformity error [%] Contrast ratio 940 70x70 5x3 4,875 73.9 5.1 42:1 3. Dot projector 144 x 70 degree The dot projector has a 5 x 5 tiling, FoI of 144⁰ x 70⁰, yet maintains a dot-uniformity-error around 20% which is highly advantageous for applications such as in-cabin monitoring. (The full projected pattern is pincushion distorted but the corners are clipped by the limited field of view of the detector) λ [nm] FOI (XY) [⁰] Tiling Number of spots Efficiency [%] Dot uniformity error [%] Contrast ratio 940 144x70 5x5 8,125 67.1 20.9 41:1 4. Dot projection by collimator This dot projector is based on collimation without fan-out. This means that the number of projected dots equals the number of emitter in the VCSEL array and the FOI is givel bu the focal length of the metalens collimator. λ [nm] Tiling Number of spots Efficiency [%] Contrast ratio 940 1x1 325 85 166:1 Fan-out 2 FOI Non-uniformity (%) Efficiency (%) 70x50 15.6 77.6
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