How meta-optics is enabling mobile-scale hyperspectral imaging

Meta-optical spectral imaging is transforming hyperspectral imaging from bulky lab systems into scalable, real-world solutions. Alan Zhan Naren Yellai While conventional RGB cameras capture only three broad spectral bands, hyperspectral imaging captures the full spectral signature of materials and has long held promise across various industries. But legacy systems—dependent on bulky, mechanical, and costly dispersive […]

The image quality of this salt-grain-sized camera in the United States is better than that of your mobile phone?

Full-Color Imaging with Learned Meta-Optics

Meta-optics—2-D arrays of subwavelength scatterers—have recently emerged as a promising candidate for drastically miniaturizing image sensors.1 Like any diffractive optics, however, meta-optical lenses suffer from strong chromatic aberrations. As such, full-color images captured by a single meta-optic have remained poor, limiting their applications in imaging. We recently demonstrated that combining computer learning algorithms with meta-optics can […]

Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain

Researchers at Princeton University and the University of Washington have developed an ultracompact camera the size of a coarse grain of salt. The system relies on a technology called a metasurface, which is studded with 1.6 million cylindrical posts and can be produced much like a computer chip.  Now, researchers at Princeton University and the […]