Indian Origin Engineer Creates A Focus-Free Lens That’ll Change The World Of Photography

Today, smartphone cameras have gotten so much better, that one doesn’t even consider buying a camera for a trip. Software and hardware has improved to the extent that they sometimes offer DSLR-grade low-light performance.

University of Utah

However, an Indian-origin engineer at the University of Utah has now developed a flat lens that not only takes less space but also doesn’t need to focus, to deliver sharper images.

Published in journal Optica, Rajesh Menon, the mastermind behind this project as well as the lead engineer from the University of Utah, said in a statement, “Our flat lenses can drastically reduce the weight, complexity and cost of cameras and other imaging systems while increasing their functionality. Such optics could enable thinner smartphone cameras, improved and smaller cameras for biomedical imaging such as endoscopy, and more compact cameras for automobiles.”

The new lens design uses nano-structures patterned on a level surface, instead of a chunky glass or plastic unit to control the travelling of the light and form images.

In a conventional camera, multiple glass or plastic lenses are aligned in a way that moves in order to sharpen a subject, thus putting it in focus. This new lens doesn’t need any of that and that single lens can do all the work instantaneously.

University of Utah

It uses the pupil function concept for transmission of light, which gave the engineer the flexibility to try out a variety of lens designs.

Menon says, “The new lens eliminates the need for focusing and allows any camera to keep all the objects in focus simultaneously. Conventional cameras also use multiple lenses to keep different colours of light in focus simultaneously. Since our design is very general, we can also use it to create a single flat lens that focuses all colours of light, drastically simplifying cameras even further.”

He further added, “This new lens could have many interesting applications outside photography such as creating highly efficient illumination for LIDAR that is critical for many autonomous systems, including self-driving cars.”