Circumventing size-bandwidth limits in imaging with flat lenses

Abstract: Recent theoretical work suggested upper bounds on the operating bandwidths of flat lenses. Here, we show how these bounds can be circumvented via a multi-level diffractive lens (MDL) of diameter = 100 mm, focal length = 200 mm, device thickness = 2.4{\mu} m and operating bandwidth from ? = 400 nm to 800 nm. We further combine the MDL with a refractive lens to demonstrate a hybrid telescope. By appealing to coherence theory, we show that the upper bound on relative bandwidth is surprisingly independent of lens diameter or numerical aperture, but is only limited by the bandwidth of the image sensor. Since large-area achromatic flat lenses produce significant reductions in weight over their refractive counterparts, these calculations and experiments open up opportunities for very large scale diffractive and diffractive-refractive telescopes.