The Future Has Arrived for Meta-Optics
A development first made about 20 years ago has the potential to explode into the general consciousness in 2023.
You’re about to see the world in a whole new perspective.
Photographer: Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP via Getty Images
As 2022 draws to a close, it’s natural to think about what to expect from 2023. I’m primarily interested in technology. No doubt there will be continued improvements that provide immediate benefit, as well as breakthroughs that promise changes a decade or so in the future. I’m focused on something in between, a technology that’s been around for about 20 years that has the potential to explode into the general consciousness in 2023, and to be transformative over the next decade: meta-optics.
Simply put, meta-optics are flat surfaces that can act as lenses. This may seem rudimentary, but don’t forget that lenses in telescopes and microscopes were key drives of the development of modern science and are used in many devices today — eyeglasses, phones, cars, cameras. Modern lenses are little different from those of 500 years ago, and unlike nearly everything else, cannot be made smaller or thinner.