Indian-origin scientist part of team that develops new ‘fibre-based’ camera that requires no lensMumbai, Feb 15(AZINS) With all the strides in the field of digital imaging, the one component that has stayed virtually unchanged through it all is the humble lens. Every lens--either constructed from glass or plastic--works on the principle of diffracting incoming light and focusing it onto some kind of light sensor. But a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently created an altogether new optical system that surprisingly requires no lens.

This innovative imaging system comprises a bundle of optical fibres that negates the need for any lens or even a protective housing. These fibres are individually connected to an array of photosensors at one end with the other ends of the flexible strands left free.

Interestingly, each of free end of the fibres do not need to be physically oriented to correspond with the anchored ends: utilizing a technique called “time of light”, the method measures the differing times at which short bursts of light reach each of the photodetectors. The system then uses this information to determine the relative location of each of the fibres.

Given this system’s inherent flexibility, it could find applications in fields as diverse as imaging within pipes and aquifers, to endoscopes that use narrower diameters.

"Time of flight, which is a technique that is broadly used in our group, has never been used to do such things," said first author Barmak Heshmat, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who led the new work.

"Previous works have used time of flight to extract depth information. But in this work, I was proposing to use time of flight to enable a new interface for imaging," Heshmat said.

One of the researchers on this project, Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar, was also responsible responsible for building a camera system that can see around corners using a new approach called femto-photography.

The study was published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.