A ‘meta-material’ lens could herald the arrival of “a new class of optical devices”, say its creators.

Until now, say Nathan Kundtz and David Smith, lenses have been designed by grinding a surface to alter the path of light rays. Instead, they have been working on “a more natural—but usually less convenient” method using not just the surface but the whole volume of the lens.

What they came up is rather like a tiny set of Venetian blinds made of fibreglass etched with copper. It is the arrangement of the pieces rather than the properties of the material that bend electromagnetic waves.

In Nature Materials they report that their lens works with microwaves, giving a near-180 degree view. It demonstrates that what was previously theoretical can be made practical, they say (press release).

“This design may be of practical importance, but it also serves to underscore the fundamentally new devices that can be produced when control of the volume of a material is used. We expect that the techniques used in the design of this lens will be of importance in many areas of electromagnetic design,” write the researchers, both of whom work out of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

“At short wavelengths, they may be used to design replacement optical devices that have previously required the use of complex systems of many lenses. At longer wavelengths such systems are impractical because of the size and weight limitations, thus making the lens we have designed a fundamentally new tool.”

It should be possible to make a similar lens for visible light, say the team, although that will take a bit more work.

Image: the new lens / Duke University Photography