Flat Lenses

Even if we are not familiar with lenses, the smartphones we use to take photos all contain lenses. Essentially, a camera lens gathers light and focuses it onto a single point. These lenses are made by utilizing the special properties of glass. That’s why the surface of every lens is a bit curved. However, scientists have been trying to figure out how to make lenses using flat glass. The first successful implementation was made by a Harvard scientist named Federico Capasso in 2012. He mainly used the wavelength of light to make this possible. But his lens could only work with light of a single color. In February 2015, he published in Science magazine showing that the lens could now work with all colors of light.

You might be wondering, with so many developments, what is the need to straighten a curved lens? Actually, if a lens is flat, the cost of manufacturing lenses will decrease significantly. Someday, even ordinary plastic might be able to perform as well as today’s expensive lenses. For readers’ information, there are some lenses in the world that cost from hundreds of thousands to millions of taka. The reason for such high prices is that making curved glass is very difficult. It seems in the future, we may have lenses with flat surfaces.