Artificial eye developed to help correct blurry images

Inspired by the human eye, scientists have developed an adaptive metalens that is essentially a flat, electronically controlled artificial eye.

The adaptive metalens simultaneously controls for three of the major contributors to blurry images: focus, astigmatism, and image shift.

The study, published in the journal Science Advances, demonstrates the feasibility of embedded optical zoom and autofocus for a wide range of applications including cell phone cameras, eyeglasses and virtual and augmented reality hardware.

"This research combines breakthroughs in artificial muscle technology with metalens technology to create a tunable metalens that can change its focus in real time, just like the human eye," said Alan She from Harvard John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) in the US.
 

To build the artificial eye, the researchers first needed to scale-up the metalens.

Prior metalenses were about the size of a single piece of glitter. They focus light and eliminate spherical aberrations through a dense pattern of nanostructures, each smaller than a wavelength of light.

"Because the nanostructures are so small, the density of information in each lens is incredibly high," said She.

To solve this problem, the researchers developed a new algorithm to shrink the file size to make the metalens compatible with the technology currently used to fabricate integrated circuits.

The scientists demonstrated the design and fabrication of metalenses up to centimeters or more in diameter.

"This research provides the possibility of unifying two industries: semiconductor manufacturing and lens-making, whereby the same technology used to make computer chips will be used to make metasurface-based optical components, such as lenses," said Capasso.

The researchers also demonstrated that the lens can simultaneously focus, control aberrations caused by astigmatisms, as well as perform image shift.

Together, the lens and muscle are only 30 microns thick.