Lenses appear in all sorts of everyday objects, from prescription eyeglasses to cell-phone cameras. Typically, lenses rely on a curved shape to bend and focus light. But in the tight spaces inside consumer electronics and fiber-optic systems, these rounded lenses can take up a lot of room. Over the last few years, scientists have started crafting tiny flat lenses that are ideal for such close quarters. To date, however, thin microlenses have failed to transmit and focus light as efficiently as their bigger, curved counterparts.
Caltech engineers have created flat microlenses with performance on a par with conventional, curved lenses. These lenses can be manufactured using industry-standard techniques for making computer chips, setting the stage for their incorporation into electronics such as cameras and microscopes, as well as in novel devices.
"The lenses we use today are bulky," says Amir Arbabi, a senior researcher in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, and lead author of the paper. "The structure we have chosen for these flat lenses can open up new areas of application that were not available before."
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