Ultrathin high-resolution camera inspired by insect eyes

The vision systems in nature provide intriguing optical design inspiration for ultracompact imaging systems. A research group led by Ki-Hun Jeong has demonstrated a fully packaged ultrathin insect-eye camera, that offers high contrast and super-resolution imaging by using novel optical materials and techniques. This ultrathin arrayed camera could have practical applications in mobile devices, advanced surveillance vehicles, and endoscopes.

Article | Fall 2020

An insect’s compound eye has superior visual characteristics such as a wide viewing angle, high speed motion capturing, and large depth of field while maintaining a small volume of the visual structure with a small focal length. Among them, the eyes of Xenos peckii, an endoparasite of paper wasps, have hundreds of photoreceptors in a single lens unlike conventional compound eyes with a few light-sensing cells in an individual eyelet. This unique structure offers higher visual resolution than other insect eyes. The Xenos peckii eye also perceives partial images through pigmented cups that block incoming light between eyelets.

Inspired by the Xenos peckii eye structure, Prof. Ki-Hun Jeong’s team demonstrated a fully packaged ultrathin insect eye camera. They developed a unique new configuration of micro-optical element to completely suppress the optical noise between microlenses while reducing camera thickness. This optical component was integrated with a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) image sensor, and the final thickness of the fully packaged camera lens is only 740 ㎛.

The fully packaged ultrathin arrayed camera has successfully demonstrated high contrast clear array images acquired from tiny microlenses. To further enhance the quality of the captured image, Prof. Jeong’s team has discussed the vision principle of insect eyes and combined the array images into one image through super-resolution imaging. This work represents the first demonstration of super-resolution imaging, which acquires a single integrated image with high contrast and high resolving power reconstructed from high contrast array images.

 

Prof. Jeong said, “This work reports the first demonstration of an ultrathin arrayed camera for high contrast and super resolution imaging. We believe that our study will lead to technical advances in imaging applications and also significantly impact multidisciplinary communities of micro and nanotechnology mining the smartness from natural photonic structures,”

This research was published in Light: Science & Applications on February 27, 2020 under the title, “Biologically inspired ultrathin arrayed camera for high-contrast and high-resolution imaging”