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New ultrathin lens focuses light into an optical needle
Phys.org • • science
Key Points:
- Researchers have developed an ultrathin multi-level diffractive lens, about 7 microns thick, that shapes light into a narrow optical needle, enabling deeper and sharper imaging in optical coherence tomography (OCT) systems.
- Integrating this lens into OCT increased imaging depth by a factor of nine while maintaining high resolution, without requiring complex optical redesigns.
- The technology could improve medical imaging, particularly in ophthalmology, allowing earlier disease detection and better diagnosis by providing clear images both on tissue surfaces and deep inside.
- The lens uses millions of microscopic step-like structures to manipulate light at the subwavelength scale, combining multiple optical functions into a compact, cost-effective device.
- Future work aims to make the optical needle dynamically tunable for various imaging conditions and to simplify high-performance imaging systems for consumer devices such as smartphone cameras.
