New camera ditches lenses for thinner-than-paper design

Researchers at Caltech have come up with a new digital camera design that does away with the need for optics. The new technology uses an optical phased array to capture light at different times with different focus, thus creating an entire image. Traditional cameras require a lens or pinholes to focus light onto a sensor, which makes them bulky. This would eliminate that protruding camera lens from the back of cellphones. Professor of Electrical Engineering at Caltech Ali Hajimiri says that it could be made thinner than paper. Hajimiri explains the optical phased array system by comparing it to a…

This story continues at The Next Web