Just how tiny is tiny?
Engineers at UC San Diego have folded up a telephoto lens in
order to build a powerful yet ultrathin digital camera. And
its final destination
may be your cell phone.
“Our imager is about seven times more powerful
than a conventional lens of the same depth,” says Eric Tremblay,
a UCSD electrical and computer engineering graduate student and
the first author of
a paper in Applied Optics describing the new technology. Tremblay
works with professor Joseph Ford, ’92, leader of the camera
project within the Photonic Systems Integration Lab at the UCSD
Jacobs School of Engineering.
While traditional zoom lenses rely on a series of separate mirrors
and transparent lenses to bend and focus light, a single 5 millimeter
thick optical crystal does the same job in the new folded system.
Diamond-cut reflective surfaces etched into the crystal bounce light
back and forth in a zigzag pattern toward the digital camera’s
light sensor. “When all is said and done, our camera will look a lot like a lens
cap that can be focused and used as a regular camera,” says
Ford.
As Alice would say: “Curiouser and curiouser.”
Contributors to Making Waves: Mario Aguilera, '89, Rex Graham, Raymond Hardie, Debra Kain, Daniel B. Kane, Kim McDonald
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