FRONTIERS PHOTONICS
CONSUMER METALENSES IN SMARTPHONES
Metasurface optics on chips enter consumer world
Ten years of foundational research led to metalenses moving from research into commercial applications
Lessons learned from metalens commercialisation
Interview with Rob Devlin, Co-Founder and CEO, Metalenz
Metalenz’ optics can be made using existing semiconductor foundry processes, helping consumer market penetration
I
n early 2023, smartphones equipped with a metalens-enabled time-of- flight (ToF) sensor hit the market, the
first commercially available metasurface technology to be used in consumer devices. The development came as a result of a partnership between Metalenz and semiconductor giant STMicroelectronics. Unlike traditional moulded and curved
lenses, metalens optics are completely planar, and are now being manufactured on silicon wafers alongside electronics in ST’s semiconductor front-end fabs for the first time. The meta-optics collect more light, provide multiple functions in a single layer, and enable new forms of sensing in smartphones and other devices, while taking up less space. Metalenz’s flat-lens technology replaces certain existing optics in ST’s FlightSense ToF modules, which serve applications such as smartphones, drones, robots, and vehicles. In these, ST
has sold more than 1.7 billion units to date. ST’s VL53L8CX sensor integrates a
new generation VCSEL and two advanced meta-surface lenses. In the smartphone camera (the make of which has not yet been disclosed) the metalens sensor will aid the camera’s autofocus in taking more accurate distance measurements at high speeds, which enhances low-light imaging. The commercial availability followed more
than a decade of foundational research, according to Metalenz. Electro Optics spoke with Rob Devlin, the company’s Co-Founder and CEO, about bringing the technology to market.
“The meta-optics collect more light, provide multiple functions in a single layer, and enable new forms of sensing in smartphones”
46 Photonics Frontiers 2023
What challenges did you have to overcome to carry your technology from the research stage to commercial product? One of the things that normally is a big challenge for taking something from the lab and getting it out into the market is finding how to make it mass producible. You make a few in the lab; they perform in a certain way. You now need to make millions and millions of devices and get them all to perform in the same way and meet a customer spec. One of the major advantages with our metasurface optics is that they are made using existing semiconductor foundry processes, so fortunately volume and repeatability are not the major challenges. That’s one of the big benefits that has allowed us to scale so quickly. The biggest challenge for
our technology, and really any new technology, is convincing a customer to take that risk of adoption. It means you can’t just be a few per cent better on some metric. You must be displacing a true pain point for them. No one ever gets fired for improving the incumbent by 5% year over year, but if a company takes a risk on a new technology and it doesn’t work, that can be a
STMicroelectonics/Metalenz
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