Researchers successfully shrink camera to size of ‘salt grain’

Researchers at Princeton University and University of Washington have developed an ultra-compact camera— the size of a coarse grain of salt. 

The system relies on 'metasurface' technology, which is studded with 1.6 million cylindrical posts and can be produced much like a computer chip.

It can produce full-colour images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 5, 00,000 times larger in volume.  

Micro-sized cameras have great potential to spot problems in the human body and enable sensing for super-small robots.

Although, past approaches captured fuzzy, distorted images with limited fields of view, Now, researchers have overcome these obstacles.

The new system can produce crisp, full-color images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 500,000 times larger in volume.

Enabled by a joint design of the camera's hardware and computational processing, the system could enable minimally invasive endoscopy with medical robots to diagnose and treat diseases, and improve imaging for other robots with size and weight constraints. 

Moreover, arrays of thousands of such cameras could be used for full-scene sensing, turning surfaces into cameras.