Engineers have developed an ultra-thin silicon metal lens with an infinite refractive index that can serve as a camera lens or be used in other devices.
The invention of a team of researchers fromThe University of São Paulo consists of just one nanometer layer of silicon, placed on an array of tiny waveguides that refract light as it passes through them. The metalens structure was created using the photolithography method.
Based on the principles of traditional lenses, engineers designed a metalen,The lens created by the team hasAn arbitrary field of view, which can ideally reach 180° without distorting the image.
Tests have shown that the efficiency of the lens begins to decrease at angles of view greater than 110° as the light energy decreases due to the shadow effect, but this can be corrected with post-processing.Although the combination of metalens does not achieve ultra-high resolution, the resulting image quality is more than sufficient for any non-specialized application.
So far, the team has managed to get images only in green, but further lens upgrades will allow the entire visible spectrum to be included in the work.
We also previously reported on the development of a focusless camera with a new flat lens that does not require focusing.
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