SPACE PLATE : a new way of imaging!

Recently scientists have found a break through in terms of Imaging principle of lens, using Space plate will reduce the size of a lens nearly three to four times, especially Long Tele lens imaging can be achieved by a smaller size of lens with the use of Space plate.

The space between the lens and the sensor of a camera is dictated to a large degree by the focal length f of the lens. A relatively large focal length is necessary to suitably magnify an image, which leads to long lens barrels in cameras. One approach toward reducing this length could be the use of a spaceplate, allowing for the large magnification of a faraway object without the need for a large propagation length. While nominally this is also the goal of a telephoto lens, in practice the length of a telephoto lens barrel has been approximately constrained to be 0.8 times its effective focal length.

Centuries of effort to improve imaging has focused on perfecting and combining lenses to obtain better optical performance and new functionalities. The arrival of nanotechnology has brought to this effort engineered surfaces called metalenses, which promise to make imaging devices more compact.  the space between the lenses, which is crucial for image formation but takes up by far the most room in imaging systems.

Optical ‘spaceplate’ that effectively propagates light for a distance that can be considerably longer than the plate thickness.

Unlike a telephoto lens, a spaceplate could therefore break the trade-off between lens-barrel length and image magnification. Moreover, since the resulting image may now be large, so can the image sensor  can capitalize on this larger sensor by using larger pixels for low-light sensitivity, or a greater number of pixels for a higher resolution. In this way, the spaceplate could one day break the trade-off between camera miniaturization and any of resolution, sensitivity, magnification, or field-of-view.

Adding a spaceplate to an imaging system such as a standard camera with a fixed lens will shorten the camera thickness. Added to a lens, it will shorten the length of the lens barrel (and therefore its weight). An ultrathin monolithic imaging system can be formed by integrating a metalens and a spaceplate directly onto a sensor

If this technology comes into use into Commercial and professional cameras Sensor size will be redefined…even a micro four thirds size would be bigger one like a large format Sensor.

Compiled by

CJ Rajkumar

Author/Cinematographer