Tiny New Lenses, Smaller Than a Hair, Could Transform Phone and Drone Cameras (sciencedaily.com)
- Reference: 0179485644
- News link: https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/09/23/0441203/tiny-new-lenses-smaller-than-a-hair-could-transform-phone-and-drone-cameras
- Source link: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/09/250921090853.htm
> Scientists have developed a new multi-layered metalens design that could revolutionize portable optics in devices like phones, drones, and satellites. By stacking metamaterial layers instead of relying on a single one, the team overcame fundamental limits in focusing multiple wavelengths of light. Their algorithm-driven approach [2]produced intricate nanostructures shaped like clovers, propellers, and squares , enabling improved performance, scalability, and polarization independence. [...] Mr Joshua Jordaan, from the Research School of Physics at the Australian National University and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS), said the ability to make metalenses to collect a lot of light will be a boon for future portable imaging systems. "The metalenses we have designed would be ideal for drones or earth-observation satellites, as we've tried to make them as small and light as possible," he said.
The findings have been [3]published in the journal Optics Express .
[1] https://slashdot.org/~alternative_right
[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/09/250921090853.htm
[3] http://dx.doi.org/10.1364/OE.564328
Pics or it didn't happen (Score:2)
I dig the research into [1]metamaterials [wikipedia.org], which definitely falls into the category of "weird stuff that's possible but makes my brain hurt". And I get that it's research - investigating new possibilities - with some hand-wavy possible use cases. Still: I would like it better if they had actually fabricated some of these lenses and provided test data. Can they actually be fabricated with known manufacturing processes? Does their performance hold up in practice compared to theory? What kind of real-world im
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Metamaterial&oldid=1311976837
Re: (Score:2)
No, they cannot be fabricated today and probably not ever be fabricated with typical processes either. This is a what if we were able to make any arrangement physically possible kind of study. Similar types of meta materials have been actually made and studied physically and are fairly well understood so it probably stands to reason if it’s built it would function similarly to the simulation. It’s really cool from a miniature sensor perspective, but camera performance is based on many things
but is it practical? (Score:3)
Like high speed photography, small lenses require a lot of light, and are useless without it. I wonder how practical something like this can be? At the very least they're going to need to be paired with some pretty high tech image sensors. Regardless, it also brings into question how high the resolution could practically go.
Small, high res, low light, and fast shutter speed are all competing against each other, and you usually have to at least compromise on one (or two) to do well with the others. If you're starting out with a very small lens, there's going to be a lot of compromise going on, which will greatly limit the number of applications you can use it in.
Re: (Score:2)
There's been a lot of research on making better cameras, and cell phone cameras have been getting better. So whether this particular research makes it into production or not (which is beyond my ability to determine), it seems certain that some new research will actually make it into production and ten years from now we will have better cameras than now.
Need someone smarter than myself here. (Score:2)
I can't make sense of all this shit and it seems this is a long way from production but....
> By intelligently designing these scattering elements, metalenses offer unparalleled subwavelength control over the polarization, amplitude, phase, and frequency of incident light [1]. This advanced control can drastically enhance the efficiency and compactness of next-generation optical systems
I can certainly imagine that there could be interesting applications like DLSR type cameras that fit in a phone where white light is broken up by color and each color is read by an independent sensor.
I can imagine there could be interesting AR and VR applications.
Also applications for 3d and holographic displays.
Could anyone more educated on the subject interject?
Re: (Score:2)
> I can certainly imagine that there could be interesting applications like DLSR type cameras that fit in a phone
Weird you went to actual cameras when I was thinking about medical diagnostic applications.
Re: That's no midgie! (Score:2)
I don't think the camera was then major weight point on drones. Figuring out a way to make batteries better is the way they could sneak around more.
Re: (Score:3)
I think that boat sailed with generative AI, not with camera miniaturization.
Re: (Score:1)
The larger question of course is....
Are they new lenses bodacious bokeh monsters!?!?!
;)
(The photographers here should catch that one...)
Re: (Score:2)
Having an f/.95 aperture doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot the surface area of your sensor is a fraction of a square millimeter. My S24 has an f/1.7 lens on its main camera and it still produces pathetic output compared to a $400 mirrorless camera with a kit lens.
Re: (Score:1)
> when photos emerge of him shagging a teenager.
Ivanka ain't no teen.