Resilient graphene ultrathin flat lens in aerospace, chemical, and biological harsh environment.

The development of ultrathin flat lenses has revolutionized the lens technologies and holds a great promise to miniaturize the conventional lens system in integrated photonic applications. In certain application scenarios, the lenses are required to operate in harsh and/or extreme environments, for example aerospace, chemical and biological environments. Under such circumstances, it is critical that the ultrathin flat lenses can be resilient and preserve their outstanding performance. However, majority of the demonstrated ultrathin flat lenses are based on metal or semiconductor materials that have poor chemical, thermal and UV stability, which limit their real life applications. Herein, we experimentally demonstrate a graphene ultrathin flat lens that can be applied in harsh environments for different applications, including low Earth orbit space environment, strong corrosive chemical environment (PH=0 and PH=14), and biochemical environment. The graphene lenses have extraordinary environmental stability and can maintain high level of structural integrity and the outstanding focusing performance under different test conditions. Thus it opens tremendous practical application opportunities for ultrathin flat lenses.