Scientists create a tiny, flexible lens modeled on insect eyes
Science seems obsessed with creating tiny objects that can do big things. Like a team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison which has created a new microlens with a 170-degree field of vision. Modeled after an insects multi-faceted eye, the flexible lens is roughly the size of a pinhead. Where typical lenses refract light, this one focuses using diffraction, which bends it as it passes over the folded barrier. Each of these bendable structures look like bullseyes because the lens is made up of both light and dark regions. The distance between these concentric circles determines how far the lens can see and the best part is, because they're flexible, the field of vision can be easily altered.
The cylindrical arrangement of the microlenses allowed researchers to resolve a 170-degree field of view.
The team was able to achieve clear results because they used custom-designed Fresnel zone plates in the microlens. Creating the dark regions of the lens was the hardest part of the exercise. The team had to figure out a way to make sure it doesn't reflect any light whatsoever. To achieve this, they had to build an entirely new layering process from the ground up. Applying this technology to surgical scopes and security cameras has the potential to completely change what they're capable of doing.
[Image credit: ullstein bild via Getty Images / Hongrui Jiang]
