Scientists have invented a lens that defeats the diffraction limit, a seemingly immutable physical law that restricts image quality. Conventional lenses can resolve only objects that are larger than the wavelength of light, but the new design can clearly see previously inaccessible, sub-wavelength details.
The problem with traditional lenses, says University of Toronto electrical engineer George Eleftheriades, is that they destroy evanescent waves—reflections from an illuminated object that contain minute details of its appearance. As evanescent waves pass through a conventional lens, they dwindle to invisibility; in the process, some of the most interesting parts of the image are lost. Four years ago, physicist John Pendry at Imperial College in London worked out a method that would, in theory, recover the evanescent waves, but nobody knew if it was practically feasible.
To find out, Eleftheriades and graduate student Anthony Grbic constructed a novel lens out of a thin lattice of ...
