ABSTRACT Miniaturized zoom imagers often face a three‐way trade‐off among tunability, chromatic correction, and optical length. Here, we propose a cross‐scale synergistic optimization framework for a metasurface‐liquid lens hybrid imager, in which electrowetting actuation, system‐level aberration correction, and meta‐atom phase, group‐delay (GD), and fabrication constraints are optimized in a unified design space. The resulting system uses two liquid lenses, two spherical refractive lenses, and one achromatic metalens to realize 1.5 continuous visible‐band zoom over a 4–6 mm focal‐length range, a 10 field of view, and a 15.5 mm total optical length. Rather than acting as an isolated focusing element, the metalens serves as a compact dispersion and high‐order aberration modulator embedded in the full objective. Full‐system wave‐optics simulations show that boundary–phase optimization improves multi‐wavelength focal consistency while exposing the residual halo imposed by phase folding. Etch‐height and system‐level tolerance analyses further indicate practical manufacturability margins for the hybrid design.
Fan et al. (2026) studied this question.