Efficient light control: Meta-optics replace conventional lenses
phys.org36 points by bookofjoe 4 days ago
36 points by bookofjoe 4 days ago
Meta-optics are such a groundbreaking innovation! Their ability to control light in ways that traditional lenses cannot opens up many new opportunities in fields like AR/VR and optical computing.
These 'meta optics' and 'meta surfaces' and 'meta grates' haven't replaced anything.
We still haven't seen a consumer commercial product that uses meta-optics, despite meta-lenses being around for 10+ years.
The new iphone uses a metasurface for structured light illumination: https://www.yolegroup.com/technology-outlook/metasurfaces-br...
What people forget is that new hardware technologies can take decades before they are used in commercial products. Quantum Dots were first synthesized in 1981 and are only in commercial stuff since the 2010th. Teflon: Invented in 1938- first commercial use in 1961. Semiconductors: Found in 1898, first commercial uses in 1958.
Interesting! TLDR is that Apple replaced a stack of four optical components with one flat metasurface to collimate the dots the FaceID camera uses to track face shape. Although they found it in the iPad and are only assuming (rightly, probably) that it will be in the iPhone 17. I wonder why none of the large tech blogs seemed to have picked that up?
>I wonder why none of the large tech blogs seemed to have picked that up?
This goes above their audiences heads which is why they are large tech blogs in the first place.