Metalenz polarization sensor wins SPIE award

https://metalenz.com/metalenz-wins-2023-prism-award/

San Francisco, CA – SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, recognized the most innovative new optics and photonics products with the annual industry-focused Prism Awards. Metalenz was named winner of the Camera and Imaging category for PolarEyes, the Company’s breakthough polarization imaging platform designed around the unique capabilities of Metalenz meta-optics.

PolarEyes is the world’s first and only optical module that can instantly provide information about the material make-up and depth details of the imaged scene, thereby providing highly valuable, previously unavailable information to machine vision systems.

Traditional approaches to polarization imaging require a complex array of optics, waveplates and filters, resulting in modules that are too large, expensive, and inefficient for mass markets or small form-factor devices. Dr. Noah Rubin and Professor Federico Capasso demonstrated in foundational research that a single meta-optic can complete image all of the polarization information in a scene without filtering or loss of efficiency. Now, the team at Metalenz has productized this breakthrough with PolarEyes. The result is a full-Stokes polarization camera that is over 5000x more compact than traditional cameras. This brings powerful lab camera capabilities into tiny camera modules that fit into any smart or mobile device. More than a polarized meta-optic, this full-stack, system-level solution combines physics and optics, software and hardware to power machine vision systems for next-generation smartphones and consumer electronics, to new automotive, robotic and healthcare applications.

“We are honored to have this recognition from SPIE and the photonics community. With PolarEyes, we are using our metasurface technology to look beyond just solving size and performance in existing sensor modules. We are empowering billions of devices with new information that will change the way that people and machines interact with and understand the world.” Rob Devlin, Metalenz Co-founder and CEO.

More information from: https://metalenz.com/polareyes-polarization-imaging-system/

Metalenz's "PolarEyes" polarization-based imaging system is a microscopic sensing solution that harnesses the power of polarized light. PolarEyes characterizes depth, material properties and detects transparent objects–bringing new information to a mobile form factor for the first time.

Traditional approaches to polarization imaging require a complex array of light splitters and filters, resulting in modules that are too large, expensive and inefficient for mass markets or small form-factor devices. PolarEyes shrinks these powerful lab cameras into tiny camera modules that fit into any smart or mobile device.

PolarEyes captures polarized light without filtering or loss of signal strength, and the full-stack, system-level solution combines physics and optics, software and hardware to power machine vision systems for next-generation smartphones and consumer electronics, to new automotive, robotic and healthcare applications.

Polarization provides an additional scene cue beyond intensity and depth which can be used for material classification, improved 3D sensing (surface normal reconstruction) and removing glare. Use cases include consumer electronics, robotics and automotive.