this post was submitted on 02 Jun 2025
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Ultra-thin lenses that make infrared light visible (ethz.ch)
submitted 2 months ago by Pro@programming.dev to c/science@mander.xyz
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  • A team of physicists at ETH Zurich has created a tiny metalens that can half the wavelength of incident light.
  • They have achieved this using a special metal-oxide lens material called lithium niobate and through nanoscale pattern, stamped into the material.
  • Such metalenses could be used as a security feature on banknotes or in the fabrication of ultra-thin elements for cameras.
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[–] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago

Pretty sweet stuff - they combined metalens tech (lens miniaturization) with a nonlinear optical material (Lithium niobate). The physics of harmonic generation is amazing by itself: light entering such a crystal induces photons of a smaller wavelength to be emitted.