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Shaping light with a Smartlens

In a study recently published in Nature Photonics, [...] researchers demonstrate an adjustable technique to manipulate light without any mechanical movement. In this approach, coined Smartlens, a current is passed through a well-optimized micrometer-scale resistor, and the heating locally changes the optical properties of the transparent polymer plate holding the resistor.

In much the same way as a mirage bends light passing through hot air to create illusions of distant lakes, this microscale hot region is able to deviate light. Within milliseconds, a simple slab of polymer can be turned into a lens and back: small, micrometer-scale Smartlenses heat up and cool down quickly and with minimal power consumption. They can even be fabricated in arrays, and the authors show that several objects located at very different distances can be brought into focus within the same image by activating the Smartlenses located in front of each of them, even if the scene is in colours.

By modelling the diffusion of heat and the propagation of light and using algorithms inspired by the laws of natural selection the authors show they can go way beyond simple lenses: a properly engineered resistor can shape light with a very high level of control and achieve a wide variety of optical functions. For instance, if the right resistor is imprinted on it, a piece of polymer could be activated or deactivated at will to generate a given "freeform" and correct specific defects in our eyesight, or the aberrations of an optical instrument.

Tunable and free-form planar optics^[$], Nature photonics (DOI: 10.1038/s41566-019-0486-3)

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