Waiting on a super lens

Shown is an illustration of a theoretical metamaterial developed at the Michigan Technological University that could be used to create a super lens. Image courtesy MTU News.

A Jan. 6 report out of the Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Mich., suggests that a super lens capable of viewing a virus in a drop of blood could one day make ultra-high resolution microscopes as commonplace as the cameras in cell phones.

But first, notes the report, you need to develop the right metamaterials—"artificial materials with properties not seen in nature."

Toward that end, Durdu Guney, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at MTU, has developed a theoretical model of a super lens that could potentially use visible light to see objects as small as 100nm across. Guney's model includes the use of plasmons that are excited by an electromagnetic field to gather light waves from an object and cause negative refraction.

His model suggests that metamaterials can be stretched to refract light waves in a range from infrared to visible light and beyond into the ultraviolet spectrum.

Guney said the technology could be applied to the lithography microfabrication process.

"The lens determines the feature size you can make," Guney told MTU, "and by replacing an old lens with this super lens, you could make smaller features at a lower cost. You could make devices as small you like."