Home > Mechanical > Engineers Design Camera Lens That Is 20 Times Thinner Than A Human Hair

Engineers Design Camera Lens That Is 20 Times Thinner Than A Human Hair

There appears to be one major complaint about Apple’s latest high-tech iPhone 11 – the thick lens bump of the smartphone’s triple-camera system.

Engineers claim to have designed a lens that is thousand times thinner than the leading variants, which could omit the unsightly bumps on the back of the sleek glass.

Instead of being curved like its counterparts, the new lens is flat and bends light directly at the camera’s sensor – instead of catching light off an object and bending it before it reaches the sensor.

While this could ultimately produce smartphone cameras with no bump, it could also give them the ability to take thermal imaging to look for heat signatures.

Engineers claim to have designed a lens that is thousand times thinner than the leading variants, which could omit the unsightly bumps on the back of the sleek glass. While this could ultimately produce smartphone cameras with no bump

The lens was developed by engineers at the University of Utah who believe it could be used to flatten the loathe camera bumps, in addition to added to drones and night vision cameras for military purposes.

Co-author or the paper electrical and computer engineering graduate student, Monjurul Meem said ‘our lens is a hundred times lighter and a thousand times thinner, but the performance can be as good as conventional lenses,’

A conventional curved lens takes light that bounces off an object and bends it before it ultimately reaches the camera sensor that forms the digital picture.

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But this new lens has many microstructures, each bending the light in the correct direction at the sensor.

While this could ultimately produce smartphone cameras with no bump, like the triple-camera system on the iPhone Pro handsets, it could also give them the ability to take thermal imaging to look for heat signatures

The team has developed a fabrication process with a new type of polymer along with algorithms that can calculate the geometry of these microstructures.

‘You can think of these microstructures as very small pixels of a lens,’ Menon explains. ‘They’re not a lens by themselves but all working together to act as a lens.’

The result is a lens that is flat instead of curved and more than 20 times thinner than a human hair with the added capability of being used in thermal imaging to see objects in the dark.

While this could ultimately produce smartphone cameras with no bump, it could also give them the ability to take thermal imaging to look for heat signatures.

But a more immediate use for this technology would allow lighter military drones to fly longer for night missions or to map forest fires or look for victims of natural disasters.

And soldiers in the field could carry much lighter night vision cameras for a longer duration.

This optical lens could have saved Apple from a lot of criticism with the release of its iPhone 11, as the camera was ridiculed by fans on social media for looking similar to a coconut with its three protruding lenses

Menon says this new lens could also be cheaper to manufacture because the design allows them to create them out of plastic instead of glass.

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This optical lens could have saved Apple from a lot of criticism with the release of its iPhone 11, as the camera was ridiculed by fans on social media for looking similar to a coconut with its three protruding lenses.

Apple boasts that the cameras will allow fans better photo capabilities than ever before but the design has left fans distinctly unimpressed.

Some users said the camera arrangement is triggering their fear of clusters of small holes ¿ called trypophobia, which could be set off by images like these

One claimed that the three cameras made the phone resemble a coconut while another compared the design to a bowling ball.

Others suffering from trypophobia – a fear of clusters of small holes – say the small grouping of lenses has triggered their anxieties.

Several compared the device to aliens with a few even posting photos of the camera re-imagined as kitchen hobs.

For people with trypophobia, the new design is a potential nightmare and several Apple fans shared their horror on Twitter.

Trypophobia is a fear or aversion to the sight of clusters of small holes.

One fan wrote: ‘The new iPhone is creeping me TF out with the 3 little cameras #Trypophobia.’

Source: Dailymail

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