Holographic surface Morphing for ready-to-use planar Photonic components

The HoloMorPh consortium will develop the first sustainable, direct, closed-loop holo-lithographic platform that uses only light to fabricate, refine, and reversibly or stably lock-in ready-to-use planar photonic components. These miniaturized, high-performance optical elements, realized as micro- and nanostructured surfaces, can surpass traditional glass optics, while enabling ultra-compact, lightweight devices that drastically reduce footprint and complexity of the entire optical system. They promise a transformative impact on display technologies, optical imaging, and sensing. However, mass-producing high-quality planar photonic components remains limited by current multi-step lithographic processes that are inefficient, costly, and environmentally burdensome. HoloMorPh will overcome these challenges by combining innovations in digital holography, structuring-enhancing meta-optics, and light-responsive materials. The “holomorphing” process will include automatic self-optimization of surface geometries via a real-time feedback loop that integrates digital holographic microscopy as the in-loop metrology sensor, artificial intelligence, and a distributed cloud-based network to enable tuning of the ready-to-use optical elements while they form. HoloMorPh’s interdisciplinary approach leverages the complementary expertise of the team in materials chemistry, holography, meta-optics, machine learning, cloud computing, optical engineering, and environmental science to deliver customizable photonic components for augmented reality, beam shaping, and adaptive optics.