New Technology – a flat lens without the optical distortions that we’ve come to love/hate in the ground-glass era of optics!
The Applied physicists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are reporting success in the making of a flat lens without the normal distortions of conventional lenses.
Since the invention of lenses (in Assyria 3,000 yrs ago?), we’ve had to endure the inherent distortions of glass lens for the focusing of light. Even improvements such as those credited to Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, considered by many to be the “the Father of Microbiology“, still left us making up for the flaws in these lenses.
So much so, that we’ve incorporated the warped view into our aesthetics i.e. ‘fish-eye’. And, digital camera manufacturers and software designers have devised some pretty good workarounds for these limitations.
Now there is the potential to tune the lens to the light/wavelength, and if I read this right, to produce flat lenses for a really wide range of applications, eliminating much of today’s lens making methodologies.
In a word,’wow’!
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: Flat lens offers a perfect image – Press Release