Future camera sensors will not need lenses

Future camera technology will no longer rely on mechanical components such as motors, gears or lenses, because everything can be handled directly with a single chip.

Researchers at Caltech are working on a new camera design that eliminates optical lenses. Using the use of optical phased array technology , researchers can capture light at multiple points with different focus points. Synthesizing these light will create a complete picture.

New camera design allows the removal of optical lenses.

Traditional cameras need lenses or pinholes to focus light on the sensor. However, the emergence of multiple lens groups inadvertently makes the camera more cumbersome and takes up more space. Researching next-generation sensors will allow for the removal of the lens that normally appears on the phone, making the device thinner. Even professor of electrical engineering Ali Hajimiri at Caltech said the sensor could be thinner than paper?

Hajimiri explains the ultrasound system of the optical phase combining with other analog systems. Ultrasound technology combines optical phase operation by removing light waves that travel from all directions except for a specific direction that has been specified by the user or software. The result is an amplified light signal that will be processed by the new sensor to produce the image.

Another important advantage of replacing the lens with the new phase-blast ultrasound technology is the ability to switch between many different lens effects simply by changing the way the light is received. Thus, the camera with new technology is capable of producing fish-eye (telephoto) or telephoto (telephoto) shots simply by switching in the camera application. Instead of rotating the lens to find the focus point, the new camera will manipulate the light waves to capture the image.

Thus, the future of the camera will no longer need motors, mirror gear, lenses. They all just shrink with a silicon chip.

However, it will take a long time before the camera technology is actually deployed. Caltech researchers are hoping to create a 2D non-lens camera this year.