Better photos from mobiles

 

Current mobile phones, of which between 600 and 800 million are sold every year worldwide, are not known for their impressive zoom and autofocus capabilities.

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Because of their small aperture, they already offer reasonable sharpness, but poor light can make it difficult to take pictures indoors, and the results are often poor.

Possibilities for mobiles of the future include phones equipped with two cameras, and autofocus and zoom becoming more and more common.

Ignis Display saw interesting possibilities in this area, and it contacted SINTEF in Norway, who had some ideas about how this functionality could be transferred from ordinary cameras to mobile telephones.

A project is already under way, and as well as being able to focus extremely rapidly, the new lens will also be inexpensive and be of good optical quality.

The new design is based on the human eye's own autofocus mechanism, using a muscle-like lens to control the distance on which we wish to focus.

For objects close to us, for instance, the muscle relaxes, so that the lens becomes thicker in the middle, and when we focus on objects at greater distances it contract so the lens becomes thinner.

Shape-shifting materials

Ignis’s new lens is made of soft material, a low-density polymer that can be easily formed and that can change its shape almost like a muscle.

The polymer is installed on a silicon circuit together with piezoelectric elements which convert electrical signals to mechanical forces and give the polymer whatever lens shape is required.

The scientists started by building a demonstration version of the lens with nuts, bolts and wires in order to demonstrate that the principle would work.

"Our first prototype will soon be ready for testing, and we will continue to improve and miniaturise it," said senior scientist Dag Wang of SINTEF.

"This has been an interdisciplinary project in which our ceramics scientists have developed a robust and stable piezoelectric element, while the plastics scientists have been working on the polymer."

The experts at Ignis bring together several wafers and install the polymer, before integrating the tiny lens module with the necessary electronics and other lens elements.

Today, virtually all mobile telephones have at least one camera, and many people in the industry believe that it is only a matter of time until telephones will be equipped with two (one on each side), for conferences and presentations via mobile telephone.

Ignis's technology has aroused a great deal of interest both in Norway and abroad.

Although the company has several competitors, Ignis Display believes that it is likely that millions of mobile cameras will be taking photographs with its lenses within a few years.

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