'Metasurface' for 3D Imaging, AR/VR, and Efficient Automotive Lighting

Researchers from the University of Rochester  have come up with a new technology that delivers augmented and virtual reality glasses that don’t look like "bug eyes." They imprinted freeform optics with a nanophotonic optical element called a metasurface. The metasurface is a cluster of tiny, silver, nanoscale structures on a thin metallic film that conforms, in this advance, to the freeform shape of the optics. Freeform optics is an emerging technology that uses lenses and mirrors with surfaces that lack an axis of symmetry within or outside the optics diameter to create optical devices that are light and compact. Applications include 3D imaging and visualization, augmented and virtual reality, infrared and military optical systems, efficient automotive and LED lighting, energy research, remote sensing, semiconductor manufacturing and inspection, and medical and assistive technologies.