Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “A completely flat fisheye lens”.
Narrator, A team of engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell have designed a wide angle lens that is completely flat.. The design is a type of metalens, which is a wafer thin material patterned, with microscopic features that work together to manipulate light. In a specific way., In this case, their new ultra wide angle lens consists of a single flat, millimeter thin piece of glass covered on one side, with tiny structures that precisely scatter incoming light to produce panoramic images.. As of now their flat lens works in the infrared part of the spectrum, but the researchers say it could be modified to capture images using visible light as well.
MIKHAIL SHALAGINOV. I would like to show you our experimental set up for testing the imaging capabilities of the metalens.. So here we have infrared laser infrared, camera, metalens and the the target., And now we are going to track the particular pattern and change the position of the camera from normal incidence to 180 degrees. NARRATOR In their lab demonstration. The team used the imaging setup equipped with the metalens to snap pictures of a striped target.. They then compared the quality of pictures taken at various angles across the scene and found the new lens produced images of stripes that were crisp and clear. Even at the edges of the camera’s view, spanning nearly 180 degrees., Previously, scientists have designed metalenses that produce high resolution and relatively wide angle images of up to 60 degrees. To expand the field of view. Further would traditionally require additional optical components to correct for aberrations or blurriness.
A work around that would add bulk to the metalens design., But this team of researchers instead came up with a simple design that does not require additional components.. The researchers are now exploring applications for their new lens, not just as compact fisheye cameras, but also as panoramic projectors, as well as depth. Sensors built directly into smartphones, laptops and wearable devices.
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