MIT Engineers Have Created a Completely Flat Fisheye Lens
Image: Felice Frankel/MIT
Fisheye lenses make for some cool photos, but their most distinctive feature is that the glass is curved. The need for multiple bits of curved glass makes fisheye lenses both bulky and expensive. However, engineers at MIT and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell have figured out a way to make a fisheye lens that’s completely flat and could be applied in consumer devices, medical applications, and more.
The method of flattening something that is known for being bubble-like is pretty clever. To do it, the engineers used something called a “metalens,” or a flat piece of glass measuring just a millimeter thick. On the back of the metalens, they then carved teeny structures to scatter incoming light in a way that produces the same type of ultrawide, panoramic images a fisheye lens would. More specifically, the metalens is made from a transparent piece of calcium fluoride, with one side coated in a thin film of lead telluride. The teeny structural patterns were then carved using lithographic techniques.
They’re also considering using the new lens as a type of panoramic projector. The team also believes there could be medical applications—think imaging devices like endoscopes. (Imagine your doctors seeing a panoramic view of your insides in high resolution.) Similarly, low-profile wide angle lenses could also potentially be used to make less bulky VR headsets.
Compared to some more experimental discoveries, there are actually a decent number of practical applications for a flat wide-angle lens. But just because these engineers have figured it out doesn’t necessarily mean that next year’s smartphones will all be sporting the design. These sorts of things usually take a while to trickle down to consumers. That said, color me intrigued by the sorts of features a things a flat wide-angle lens could enable.