As scientists are in the process of developing a new ultra-thin lens, there is every likelihood that smartphones could be as thin as a credit card in the foreseeable future.
The new distortion-free lens are said to be so superthin, small and flat that more than 1,500 would fit across the width of a human hair. This lens has the potential of replacing lenses in applications ranging from mobile phones to cameras to fibre-optic communication systems.
Existing lenses are neither thin nor flat enough to remove distortions, which fails in creating a sharp image. To overcome these challenges, the scientists have tried to develop a new superthin, flat lens. Even though the new lens is ultra-thin, it has a resolving power that actually approaches the theoretical limits set by the laws of optics.
The lens surface is designed in such a way that the tiny metallic stripes which bend light differently as one moves away from the centre, causing the beam to sharply focus without distorting the images. The current version of the lens works at a specific design wavelength, but the scientists say it can be redesigned for use with broad-band light.
