Artificial eyes simulate insect eyes

Photo: BBC

American scientists have developed an artificial insect eye for ultra-thin cameras, taking advantage of the superiority of this type of structure.

The eye contains more than 8,500 convex hexagonal lenses mounted on an area just the size of a pin. This dome-shaped structure is similar to the eye of a bee.

Scientists from the University of Berkeley in California say the work could open up light on how insects develop such complex visual systems.

" Even if insects start with just a single cell, they grow and create their own amazing optical system, " said Professor Luke Lee, a member of the author's team. "I want to understand how nature can create these perfectly layered formatted structures without the need for expensive manufacturing technologies ," he said.

Dragonfly eyes are an arch with raised protrusions, each as a lens of light.( Photo: Macro )

Finally, the biological engineering team also found a simple and relatively inexpensive way to produce artificial eyes that mimic a natural part of the process.

Insect eyes often contain hundreds of optical units as tiny lenses, also called ommatidia. For example, each dragonfly has 30,000 such structures. Ommatidia will direct light through a lens and pinch into a channel containing light sensitive cells. These cells are connected to optical and neuron cells to produce images.

The ommatidia lie together in bulges, creating a field of view for the animal. Since each lens corrects light in a slightly different direction, the honeycomb eye will produce a mosaic image, which is very sensitive in detecting movement, despite its low resolution.

To get the artificial eye, the team first created a tiny, reusable mold with 8,700 concave surfaces. This hollow hemisphere is then filled with epoxy resin, interacting with ultraviolet rays to create a harder material with different chemical properties. After being heated at a low temperature to fix it, the material is removed from the frame. The product is a pushpin-sized dome with 8,700 raised protrusions arranged in a honeycomb pattern. Each convex will react like a lens, focusing light on the material below.

The next step is to create tiny, bright channels, like the channels of insect eyes.

In the future, the device can be used in ultra-thin cameras or high-speed motion sensors, to perfect the image creation process.

Professor Lee also believes that it will have many medical applications such as bowel imaging. The further goal of the group is to develop artificial retina for the blind.

T. An