For the most part, the design and physics behind optical lenses have remain unchanged. This is quite unlikely of modern consumers who fast deploy technologies to improve consumer products. In fact, the lenses that are available today are nearly identical to the ones developed nearly 3,000 years ago.
Meanwhile, such technological stagnation create bottlenecks created with respect to next-generation optical systems such as wearable displays for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). To attain best results, the components of wearable displays need to be lightweight, compact, and cost-effective.
In fact, after several years of hard work, a team of researchers might finally bring some innovation in the field. The team has developed achromatic metalens of size two-millimeters that is capable to focus on RGB colors without anomalies. In addition, the team has created a miniaturized display for AR and VR applications.
The results of the finding are published in Science Advances.
New metalens feature improved attributes over currently used ones
“To create this, the team employed principles of new physics and new designs. This led to engineer a flat lens to replace bulky lenses that are currently used in optical devices, stated the senior author of the study. Till date, this newly created lens is the largest RGB-achromatic metalens, and is a proof of concept to increase their size to a centimeter, to be able to be mass produced, and integrated with commercial platforms.
In terms of composition, the new metalens uses an array of titanium dioxide nanofins. These nanofins enable metalens to focus equally on wavelengths of light and remove chromatic aberration. Furthermore, the nanoarrays of titanium dioxide are engineered to have a particular shape, and are arranged in a specific pattern.