So the new iPhone 5 is the thinnest iPhone yet at under 8mm overall, but fancy a smartphone in the future which is as thin as your credit card? I personally would not want to use such a device since I tend to be rather careless and rough, which means I might end up breaking my smartphone in half by accident. Well, perhaps that might be the future with this new ultrathin flat lens that is distortion-free, and it would not only replace lenses in applications which range from smartphones to cameras and fiber-optic communication systems.
It must be said that despite the lens being ultra-thin, it will boast of a resolving power which actually approaches the theoretical limits that are set by the laws of optics. The lens surface will be patterned with small metallic stripes that are capable of bending light differently as one moves away from the center, resulting in the beam to sharply focus without having the images distorted. It goes without saying that a working smartphone with the thickness of a credit card is still far off in the future, if ever.
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