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Metalenses have the potential to replace conventional refractive optical elements, but they have been hindered by angular optical aberrations, chromatic distortions, peripheral blur, and illumination sensitivity which degrade perceptual quality. But AI is changing the landscape here too. Using a unique visual training set, sophisiticated AI enhancement tools, and new camera RGB filter pattern, MetaOptics Technologies has now demonstrated metaoptic camera performarmance that is approaching that of a refractive lens-based smartphone camera. This new white paper offers more details. 

While image processing software can also be used with conventional refractive optical lens stacks, we believe the combination of a metalens plus image processing software will offer a better option in terms of performance, cost and volume for certain applications. In particular, we believe the biometric sensor application market is perfectly suited to adopt this approach.

The optical design is intentionally minimal — one metalens for monochrome imaging, or three adjacent metalenses with per-channel filters on a single monochrome sensor. Image-processing pipelines built and tuned in MetaOptics Technologies’ proprietary AI development software enhance the image in ways that can be tailored to specific camera sensors and applications. Such algorithms can be exported to the customer’s deployment platform thus forming a bridge to the eventual on-chip ISP.