Tiny New Lenses, Smaller Than a Hair, Could Transform Phone and Drone Cameras

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceDaily: Scientists have developed a new multi-layered metalens design that could revolutionize portable optics in devices like phones, drones, and satellites. By stacking metamaterial layers instead of relying on a single one, the team overcame fundamental limits in focusing multiple wavelengths of light. Their algorithm-driven approach produced intricate nanostructures shaped like clovers, propellers, and squares, enabling improved performance, scalability, and polarization independence. Mr Joshua Jordaan, from the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), said the ability to make metalenses to collect a lot of light will be a boon for future portable imaging systems. 'The metalenses we have designed would be ideal for drones or earth-observation satellites, as we've tried to make them as small and light as possible,' he said. The findings have been published in the journal Optics Express.

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