The journal Science has a rather impenetrable abstract of some rather interesting research into miniaturised lenses that could eventually change the way lenses are made and used.
Researchers led by Harvard’s Federico Capasso have created a 2mm-wide lens using a base of quartz coated in ‘towers’ of titanium dioxide that they say outperforms the magnification of even the best microscopes. How the towers interact with light is covered at 0:51 in the video above. Crucially, the lens itself is planar – it doesn’t need to be precisely shaped in the way a traditional lens does to function.
Currently even the best available lenses are a product of moulding and shaping processes that have their origins in the 19th century. Even anti-reflection coatings are around 80 years old.
The new process would allow lenses to be fabricated in a similar way to computer chips: at scale and with a very high level of repeatable precision. Farewell chromatic aberration and hello much better cell-phone selfies… At least until the ‘optical look’ comes back into vogue in 2036.
The BBC have more on the story and here’s the abstract of the paper on the Science website. Warning: it may be peer reviewed but it doesn’t read like it’s been written for the layperson!
