Artificial insect eye is all-round better

Using the eyes of insects such as dragonflies and houseflies as models, a team of bioengineers at University of California, Berkeley, has created a series of artificial compound eyes.

These eyes could eventually be used as cameras or sensory detectors to capture visual or chemical information from a wider field of vision than previously possible, even with the best fish-eye lens, said Luke P. Lee, the team's principal investigator. Potential applications include surveillance, high-speed motion detection, environmental sensing, medical procedures such as endoscopies and image-guided surgeries that require cameras and a number of clinical treatments that can be controlled by implanted light delivery devices.

They are the first hemispherical, three-dimensional optical systems to integrate microlens arrays, thousands of tiny lenses packed side by side, with self-aligned, self-written waveguides, that is, light-conducting channels that themselves have been created by beams of light, said Lee, the Lloyd Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley.