Scientists create an "eye on reality" camera that sees invisible light
Harvard engineers make a breakthrough polarization camera.
- Harvard researchers create a tiny camera that can see polarization.
- Seeing the invisible light can help in numerous applications, from self-driving cars to satellites.
- The scientists used nanotechnology to achieve this feat.
Scientists from Harvard University created a device that offers us a view into a normally unseen world. Their new compact polarization camera promises to achieve in one shot an imaging of the direction of vibrating light, invisible to our eyes. While some polarization cameras currently exist, they are very bulky, with expensive moving parts and limited uses.
The thumb-size Harvard camera's creators see it as a breakthrough, with wide usefulness, from self-driving vehicles to satellites, planes, facial recognition, security and chemistry applications.
The research was carried out by a team from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).
Federico Capasso, professor of applied physics and senior researcher in electrical engineering at SEAS as well as senior author of the paper, called their study "game-changing for imaging."
"Most cameras can typically only detect the intensity and color of light but can't see polarization," he said. "This camera is a new eye on reality, allowing us to reveal how light is reflected and transmitted by the world around us."
Paul Chevalier, a postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and co-author of the study, explained that because polarization is a trait of light that changes when reflected from a surface, it can be helpful to reconstructing objects in 3D, allowing for better estimates of depth, texture and shape.
The team's accomplishment was in employing metasurfaces, nanoscale structures that have interaction with light at the scale of wavelengths, shared Harvard's press release.
Building upon new knowledge of how polarized light works, the team was able to create a metasurface that directed light and formed four images. Combined, these gave a full, pixel-deep snapshot of polarization.
Another advantage of the device – it's just 2 centimeters in length and can be worked into existing imaging systems like cell phone cameras.
Check out how the camera works here:
You can read the new study "Matrix Fourier optics enables a compact full-Stokes polarization camera" in Science.
To create wiser adults, add empathy to the school curriculum.
- Stories are at the heart of learning, writes Cleary Vaughan-Lee, Executive Director for the Global Oneness Project. They have always challenged us to think beyond ourselves, expanding our experience and revealing deep truths.
- Vaughan-Lee explains 6 ways that storytelling can foster empathy and deliver powerful learning experiences.
- Global Oneness Project is a free library of stories—containing short documentaries, photo essays, and essays—that each contain a companion lesson plan and learning activities for students so they can expand their experience of the world.
An extinction events expert sounds a dire warning.
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- The full eruption of the volcano last happened 640,000 years ago.
- The blast could kill billions and make United States uninhabitable.
Just before I turned 60, I discovered that sharing my story by drawing could be an effective way to both alleviate my symptoms and combat that stigma.
I've lived much of my life with anxiety and depression, including the negative feelings – shame and self-doubt – that seduced me into believing the stigma around mental illness: that people knew I wasn't good enough; that they would avoid me because I was different or unstable; and that I had to find a way to make them like me.
A joint study by two England universities explores the link between sex and cognitive function with some surprising differences in male and female outcomes in old age.
- A joint study by the universities of Coventry and Oxford in England has linked sexual activity with higher cognitive abilities in older age.
- The results of this study suggest there are significant associations between sexual activity and number sequencing/word recall in men. In women, however, there was a significant association between sexual activity in word recall alone - number sequencing was not impacted.
- The differences in testosterone (the male sex hormone) and oxytocin (a predominantly female hormone) may factor into why the male cognitive level changes much more during sexual activity in older age.
Mathematicians studied 100 billion tweets to help computer algorithms better understand our colloquial digital communication.