Traditional optical imaging and communication systems, typically composed of lenses, perform imaging operations in both forward and backward directions. Similar to a pipe that enables liquid to flow through from one end to the other in both directions, standard optical materials and lenses allow light to travel both ways through devices such as a camera.
A research team at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering recently invented a new unidirectional material to break this paradigm in optical imaging. The researchers used artificial intelligence (AI) to structurally engineer materials with details at scales smaller than the wavelength of light. The result is an imager design through which imaging is only possible in one direction, while being blocked from the other.
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