Scientists develop high-tech materials used to make thin flat fisheye lenses

According to foreign media New Atlas, ultra-wide-angle fisheye lenses are usually thick spherical devices that are not easily integrated into smartphones and other devices
.
However, this situation may change, because engineers have now created a completely flat lens
.
Designed through a collaboration between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Massachusetts Lowell, this prototype device is a so-called metalens
.
This means that it is made of a kind of engineering material-metamaterials, which has characteristics that natural materials do not possess
.
The lens consists of a millimeter-thick calcium fluoride glass coated with a thin film of lead telluride on the back
.
This film is engraved with a pattern of nano-level optical structures called meta-atoms
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These structures have several different shapes, each of which can refract light in a specific way
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When light passes through the aperture (such as the iris of a camera) and enters the lens, it passes through the glass and enters the lead telluride film, where it is dispersed through the atom atoms at different angles
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The result is a single clear image of the subject with a 180-degree field of view
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The current version of the lens is only suitable for infrared light, but the researchers said that by making the nanostructure smaller and using different materials, it can be adapted to the use of visible light
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Possible applications at that time include not only camera lenses, but also lenses for items such as endoscopes, video projectors, and virtual reality glasses
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"This design is somewhat surprising, because some people think it is impossible to make a hyperlens with an ultra-wide field of view," said Hu Juejun, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
.
"In fact, this can actually achieve fisheye images, which is completely beyond people's expectations
.
" A paper recently published in the journal Nanocommunications described this research
.