Adaptive metalens maintains focus with artificial muscle

Developed by researchers at the Harvard John A Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the adaptive metalens is said to simultaneously control three of the major contributors to blurry images, namely focus, astigmatism, and image shift. The research is published in Science Advances.

"This research combines breakthroughs in artificial muscle technology with metalens technology to create a tuneable metalens that can change its focus in real time, just like the human eye," said Alan She, a graduate student at SEAS and first author of the paper. "We go one step further to build the capability of dynamically correcting for aberrations such as astigmatism and image shift, which the human eye cannot naturally do."

"This demonstrates the feasibility of embedded optical zoom and autofocus for a wide range of applications including cell phone cameras, eyeglasses and virtual and augmented reality hardware," said Federico Capasso, Robert L Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering at SEAS and senior author of the paper. "It also shows the possibility of future optical microscopes, which operate fully electronically and can correct many aberrations simultaneously."