Printed Camera Lens

Flexible printed electronic camera lenses, modeled after the human eye, eliminate distortion found in conventional, flat-array digital cameras—and could lead to a host of novel devices based on flexible printed electronics, say University of Illinois and Northwestern University inventors of the eyelike camera.

The device collects light on a curved screen resembling an eye's retina, in contrast to digital cameras that use lenses to focus images on a flat sheet of light detectors. A curved surface reduces the need for multiple lenses, eliminating distortion that comes from projecting the light on a flat surface.

In digital cameras, rigid silicon electronics pose an obstacle in developing the curved surface. In this system a series of photodetectors is connected by thin metal wires surrounded by a thin film of polymide plastic, allowing the material to bend when compressed. The work opens new possibilities for advanced camera design and foreshadows artificial retinas for bionic eyes.