Metasurface technology: High-resolution camera the size of a grain of salt

Researchers at the University of Princeton and the University of Washington have now impressively demonstrated that a high-resolution camera does not necessarily have to be large. They have shrunk a camera to the size of a grain of salt. With the help of an advanced metasurface technology, the camera can take color photos in very good quality.

Tiny camera, big picture

What the research team at University of Princeton has managed to do is nothing short of incredible. They have shrunk a camera to the size of a grain of salt. It is so tiny that it can barely be seen on a finger with the naked eye.

The researchers are relying on a further development of so-called metasurface technology. Ultra-compact cameras were already possible with this technology, but the image quality that could be achieved with it was very limited until now. Images were usually blurred, distorted and of low resolution.

The newly developed Neural Nano-Optic system is designed to take photos of a quality comparable to cameras 500,000 times larger. The camera has a full 1.6 million microscopic cylindrical elements that respond to light. They function like optical antennas and thus capture the light.

Combined with the machine learning algorithms being used, the camera is able to interpret how light hits these antennas and combine the data to create high-resolution images.

The image quality is extremely impressive. The National Science Foundation comparison photo shows the image quality of the new model (“Neural Nano-Optics”) next to earlier cameras that are similar in size. On the far right, the researchers show a comparison to a traditional camera with a composite of six lenses that is 550,000 times larger than the newly developed meta-optics.

A whole new kind of smartphone camera

The tiny camera can process photos with a resolution of 720 x 720 pixels in just 58 milliseconds. It is expected to be used primarily in medical and industrial applications, though the researchers say it could also conceivably be used in smartphones.

Instead of a camera setup with three or four lenses, it would thus be conceivable, at least in theory, to equip the entire back of a smartphone housing with such small cameras.