Night Vision Lenses: Thin and Light for Universal Use in Darkness

Whether it’s a leisurely evening drive or simply finding your way around a dimly lit house or park, there are countless scenarios where donning a pair of night-vision lenses could prove incredibly useful.

Imagine a world where the unseen becomes visible with the simple application of an innovative technology. This could soon be achievable through a breakthrough in technology, offering everyday consumers access to an ultra-thin film or lens, comparable in thickness to cling wrap, that can unveil the hidden world beyond human optical perception.

Scientists from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) in Australia have been striving to make night vision convenient and wearable, eliminating the need for bulky and costly headsets and lens attachments.

Their recent discoveries streamline the intricate light processing into a simpler, more condensed pathway. Essentially, this advancement allows the technology to be packaged as a night-vision film weighing less than a gram, easily attachable to existing lensed frames.

Revolutionizing Nighttime Activities with Ordinary-Looking Frames

Imagine having a pair of night-vision glasses that resemble ordinary reading or driving glasses, transforming how we engage in activities after dark. The potential benefits are vast, ranging from locating a pet during a late-night stroll in the park to improving safety while driving or walking.

So why haven’t we already adopted these night vision glasses? Traditional night vision relies on a complex system where light photons pass through an objective lens into an electronic image-intensifier tube composed of two crucial components.

Initially, the photocathode converts photons into electrons, which then pass into the microchannel plate, featuring millions of holes to dramatically amplify the electron count. Subsequently, the electrons strike a phosphor-coated screen, causing them to emit a green glow, illuminating the scene observed through the night-vision system.

Currently, it’s understandably unfeasible to condense this method onto an ultra-thin piece of plastic film.

TMOS researchers utilized metasurface-based upconversion technology, streamlining the processing of light photons. Through a resonant metasurface, photons interact with a pump beam.

Lithium Niobate Metasurface Enhances Photon Energy, Eliminating Bulky Components

The non-local lithium niobate metasurface enhances photon energy, shifting them directly into the visible light spectrum, bypassing electron conversion. This approach eliminates the need for cryogenic cooling, common in traditional night vision for clearer images, thus reducing bulky goggle components.

Chief investigator Dragomir Neshev stated, “These findings offer significant prospects for industries such as surveillance, autonomous navigation, and biological imaging. Reducing the size, weight, and power demands of night-vision technology exemplifies the importance of meta-optics and TMOS’s contributions to Industry 4.0 and the future trend of extreme technology miniaturization.”

Capturing Visible and Infrared Light in a Single, High-Quality Image

Additionally, this innovative technology captures both visible and non-visible (infrared) light in a single image through the lens. Unlike traditional systems that capture separate views from each spectrum, this advancement ensures identical images for users, resulting in a higher-quality view of dark environments.

Author Rocio Camacho Morales remarked, “This marks the first demonstration of high-resolution up-conversion imaging from 1550-nm infrared to visible 550-nm light using a non-local metasurface. We selected these wavelengths as 1550 nm is commonly used in telecommunications, and 550 nm represents visible light, highly sensitive to human eyes. Future research aims to expand the device’s sensitivity to a broader range of wavelengths, achieving broadband IR imaging, and exploring image processing techniques like edge detection.”

This recent advancement builds upon their earlier research into night vision utilizing a gallium arsenide metasurface. In this study, the researchers discovered that the lithium niobate metasurface enables more efficient light processing across a larger surface area.

Lead author Laura Valencia Molina noted, “Some have deemed high-efficiency up-conversion of infrared to visible light impossible due to inherent angular loss in non-local metasurfaces. However, we have overcome these challenges and experimentally demonstrated high-efficiency image up-conversion.”

“Many have claimed that high-efficiency up-conversion from infrared to visible light is unachievable due to the significant information loss caused by angular loss inherent in non-local metasurfaces,” said lead author Laura Valencia Molina. “However, we have overcome these limitations and successfully demonstrated high-efficiency image up-conversion in our experiments.”

Read the original article on: New Atlas

Read more: The World´s First 6G Technology From Japan