With leading brands constantly trying to reduce the rear camera bump on their smartphones, a team of engineers at the University of Utah successfully developed world’s thinnest camera lens that will help in eliminating the back bump.
Wondering how thin it really is and whats make it different from the lenses that are currently being used? So, the new lens is 1000 times thinner and 100 times lighter than today’s modern lenses. It’s also flat, unlike conventional curved lenses and it can bend the light directly at the sensor.
According to UNews, Monjurul Meem, one of the co-authors of the paper and an electrical and computer engineering graduate student at the University of Utah said,
Our lens is a hundred times lighter and a thousand times thinner, but the performance can be as good as conventional lenses.
One of the researchers on the team, Rajesh Menon, said,
You can think of these microstructures as very small pixels of a lens. They’re not a lens by themselves but all working together to act as a lens.
This development will not only help in eliminating smartphone camera bump but can also be used in military drones as thermal imaging camera lenses. The lighter weight of the lens will result in lesser overall weight which will result in longer flight time and more room for a bigger battery.
Menon also mentioned that these lenses will be cheaper to manufacture as they are made up of plastic and not glass.