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Flat lens promises possible revolution in optics
BBC News Services ^
| 3 June 2016
| Roland Pease
Posted on 06/05/2016 9:26:49 AM PDT by Utilizer
A flat lens made of paint whitener on a sliver of glass could revolutionise optics, according to its US inventors.
Just 2mm across and finer than a human hair, the tiny device can magnify nanoscale objects and gives a sharper focus than top-end microscope lenses.
It is the latest example of the power of metamaterials, whose novel properties emerge from their structure.
Shapes on the surface of this lens are smaller than the wavelength of light involved: a thousandth of a millimetre.
"In my opinion, this technology will be game-changing," said Federico Capasso of Harvard University, the senior author of a report on the new lens which appears in the journal Science.
The lens is quite unlike the curved disks of glass familiar from cameras and binoculars. Instead, it is made of a thin layer of transparent quartz coated in millions of tiny pillars, each just tens of nanometres across and hundreds high.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science
KEYWORDS: lens; microscopes; optics; tio2; titaniumdioxide
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Just when you thought the limits of optics capability had been reached...
1
posted on
06/05/2016 9:26:49 AM PDT
by
Utilizer
To: Utilizer
Glass lens manufacturers may be having their Kodak moment soon.
2
posted on
06/05/2016 9:32:52 AM PDT
by
headstamp 2
(Fear is the mind killer.)
To: Utilizer
My great grandfather was a lens grinder until he fell into the machine and made a spectacle of himself.
3
posted on
06/05/2016 9:34:21 AM PDT
by
umgud
To: Utilizer
“Shapes on the surface of this lens are smaller than the wavelength of light involved: a thousandth of a millimetre.”
I wonder why they chose to work in the near-infrared, rather than the visible.
To: Utilizer
Does this mean my coke-bottle eyeglasses may become obsolete?
5
posted on
06/05/2016 9:39:06 AM PDT
by
NautiNurse
(Obama sends U.S. Marines to pick up his dog & basketballs. Benghazi? Nope.)
To: umgud
After the fall did he have a “glassy stare?”
To: rightwingcrazy
I wonder why they chose to work in the near-infrared, rather than the visible. Longer wavelength, easier to get smaller parts into as opposed to shorter wavelengths harder to divide into.
7
posted on
06/05/2016 9:44:24 AM PDT
by
Utilizer
(Bacon A'kbar! - In world today are only peaceful people, and the muzrims trying to kill them)
To: umgud
Yeah, that’s terrible. That sounds a lot like what happened to my uncle. He was fired from the pickle plant for putting his penis into the pickle slicer while on a break. In all fairness, though, they did fire her too.
8
posted on
06/05/2016 9:45:10 AM PDT
by
Bob
(No, being a US Senator and the Secretary of State are not accomplishments; they're jobs.)
To: NautiNurse
Does this mean my coke-bottle eyeglasses may become obsolete?
Not as long as kids still enjoy frying ants........
9
posted on
06/05/2016 9:47:59 AM PDT
by
Hot Tabasco
(My only regret in life is being too young to get to know my grandfathers before they died)
To: headstamp 2
Glass lens manufacturers may be having their Kodak moment soon.
...
I’d wait to see if this has any commercial viability. Stuff like this which shows up in the popular press usually doesn’t.
10
posted on
06/05/2016 9:49:09 AM PDT
by
Moonman62
(Make America Great Again!)
To: Utilizer
If challenges remain to work the technology into the visible, they might have mentioned so in the article. The devil is in the details.
To: Bob
12
posted on
06/05/2016 9:50:33 AM PDT
by
umgud
To: Bob
okay, that was funny right there.
13
posted on
06/05/2016 9:52:13 AM PDT
by
Quality_Not_Quantity
(Democrat Drinking Game - Every time they mention a new social program, chug someone else's beer.)
To: NautiNurse
Does this mean my coke-bottle eyeglasses may become obsolete?
Mine became obsolete when I discovered progressives — years ago. PTL!
14
posted on
06/05/2016 9:54:22 AM PDT
by
PraiseTheLord
(have you seen the fema camps, shackle box cars, thousands of guillotines, stacks of coffins ~)
To: Quality_Not_Quantity; umgud
I hesitated before posting since it’s such an old one. :=)
15
posted on
06/05/2016 9:55:02 AM PDT
by
Bob
(No, being a US Senator and the Secretary of State are not accomplishments; they're jobs.)
To: Utilizer
16
posted on
06/05/2016 10:00:36 AM PDT
by
camle
(keep an open mind and someone will fill it full of something for you)
To: camle
We invent it someone else makes it.
17
posted on
06/05/2016 10:06:25 AM PDT
by
DIRTYSECRET
(urope. Why do they put up with this.)
To: Utilizer
2mm? did they mean 2µm???
18
posted on
06/05/2016 10:24:49 AM PDT
by
null and void
(Hillary Milhouse Clinton: I'm not a c-- c-- c-- crook! Crook, that's the c-word I was looking for!)
To: DIRTYSECRET
Slave labor is so much cheaper than capitalism.
19
posted on
06/05/2016 10:26:03 AM PDT
by
fella
("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
To: Bob
Yeah, thats terrible. That sounds a lot like what happened to my uncle. He was fired from the pickle plant for putting his penis into the pickle slicer while on a break. A bris too far...
20
posted on
06/05/2016 10:33:54 AM PDT
by
COBOL2Java
(Donald Trump, warts and all, is not a public enemy. The Golems in the GOP are stasis and apathy)
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