Tiny silicon nano-wire towers make up dark regions of the flexible Fresnel zone lenses, and each individual lens resembles a bull's-eye of alternating light and dark. Arrays of lenses formed within a flexible polymer bend and stretch into different configurations. (Credit: Hongrui Jiang)
Drawing inspiration from an insect’s multi-faceted eye, University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers created miniature lenses with vast range of vision.
Their new approach created the first-ever flexible Fresnel zone plate microlenses with a wide field of view”a development that could allow everything from surgical scopes to security cameras to capture a broader perspective at a fraction the size required by conventional lenses. An array of the miniature lenses rolled into a cylinder can capture a panorama image covering a 170-degree field of view.
Read more here.
