The concept of “spaceplate” is a new avenue for manipulating light that could lead to paper thin cameras, telescopes.

Orad Reshef, a senior postdoctoral fellow in the Robert Boyd Group, and research lead Dr.

Jeff Lundeen, who is the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Photonics, Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa, and head of the Lundeen Lab.

Credit: Orad Reshef and Jeff Lundeen.

Orad Reshef: “Light naturally “spreads out” when it is traveling and every optical device we know of relies on this spread; we wouldn’t know how to design cameras without it.

“A spaceplate simulates the same spreading that light would experience traveling a large distance in a small device.

To light, a spaceplate looks like “more space” than it occupies.

“We introduced the idea of a spaceplate in our paper, experimentally demonstrating it and showing it is compatible with broadband light in the visible spectrum that we use to see.”.

Orad Reshef: “This is exciting because this device will let us shrink down all sorts of very large devices that we thought were impossible to miniaturize in optics.

Orad Reshef: “A spaceplate can be used to miniaturize many optical systems, be it a display or a sensor.

For example, an advanced spaceplate can enable paper-thin telescopes or cameras; it could be used to remove the “camera bump” on the back of your smartphone.”M

Orad Reshef: “We are hard at work developing the next generation of this technology.

Orad Reshef: “It’s surprising that optical elements like lenses have been around for a millennium and their design rules have been well understood for over 400 years, and yet we’re still discovering such fundamental new optical elements for imaging.”.

Reference: “An optic to replace space and its application towards ultra-thin imaging systems” by Orad Reshef, Michael P.

This research is a collaboration between two research groups of two physics professors at uOttawa, Robert Boyd, Canada Research Chair in Quantum Nonlinear Optics, and Jeff Lundeen, Canada Research Chair in Quantum Photonics

Both groups work closely together as part of the Canada Excellence Research Chair Group in Quantum Photonics (CERC) assembled by Robert Boyd (coauthor), CERC Laureate in Quantum Nonlinear Optics

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