Physicists at ETH Zurich have developed a lens with magic properties. Ultra-thin, it can transform infrared light into visible light by halving the wavelength of incident light.
  • A team of physicists at ETH Zurich has created a tiny metalens that can half the wavelength of incident light.
  • They have achieved this using a special metal-oxide lens material called lithium niobate and through nanoscale pattern, stamped into the material.
  • Such metalenses could be used as a security feature on banknotes or in the fabrication of ultra-thin elements for cameras.
  • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    Pretty sweet stuff - they combined metalens tech (lens miniaturization) with a nonlinear optical material (Lithium niobate). The physics of harmonic generation is amazing by itself: light entering such a crystal induces photons of a smaller wavelength to be emitted.