Metalenz Unveils PolarEyes: The First Polarization Technology Designed to Increase Your Security and Manage Healthcare From Smartphones
The Harvard-born meta-optics company brings polarized lenses to consumer and mobile devices for improved privacy and security features, at-home healthcare, and air quality detection tools.
Boston, Jan. 20, 2022 — Metalenz, the first company to commercialize meta-optics, today unveils PolarEyes: a new polarization technology that brings entirely new forms of sensing to camera-equipped devices. Built on foundational research from the Capasso Lab at Harvard University, Metalenz’s latest lenses enable advanced optical sensing to improve privacy features, alert drivers to safety hazards on the road, and make at-home healthcare more accessible. The full-stack, system-level solution combines physics and optics, software and hardware to power everything from next-generation smartphones and consumer electronics, to new healthcare and automotive applications.
“Our technology acts as a second set of eyes in very vulnerable situations. This could be a virtual visit to the dermatologist, or protecting the security of our mobile devices,” said Robert Devlin, co-founder and CEO of Metalenz. “Advanced optics capabilities are crucial to understanding our surroundings but typically reserved for science-grade labs. With PolarEyes, we are putting this power into people’s pockets for the first time, transforming the way they see and interact with the world.”
Powering the future of optical sensing in today’s cameras
Consumers are increasingly reliant on their camera-equipped devices. Telehealth usage has increased 38X from pre-COVID baseline, for example, as patients and providers sought ways to safely access and deliver healthcare. But as the demands on our hardware increase, lenses have lagged behind. Metalenz PolarEyes collects the polarized light information traditional cameras discard and parses through that information to better interpret the world around us.
PolarEyes unveils information and unlocks features never-before-available at a mobile form factor and price point enabling:
- Spoof-Proof Facial Authentication: Provides correct identification of users versus facial-spoofing masks and photos to safeguard consumer devices against fraudsters.
- Enhanced 3D Sensing: Provides more details to detect shapes and edges with increased contrast; improving virtual backgrounds’ quality and 3D object scanning resolution in AR/VR environments.
- Material Classification: Identifies molecular makeup of objects, giving automakers the ability to alert drivers to road hazards like black ice, and doctors the potential to diagnose skin cancer from a smartphone.
- Anti-glare Vision: Works around glare, the reflective light which often overpowers vision and machine vision, enabling robots to better maneuver and automobiles the ability to monitor for distracted driving – a new safety measure required in all vehicles by 2025.
Already engaged with a number of the world’s largest manufacturers including a recent foundry partnership with STMicroelectronics, Metalenz has the partners and supply chain logistics to meet the scale of OEMs across consumer and automotive industries. The company’s simplified manufacturing process consolidates the optics and sensor supply chain (producing both at one facility), resulting in meta-optic lenses that are more cost-efficient and compact than conventional lenses to meet the rapid increase in cameras and sensing devices.
Metalenz is backed by semiconductor leaders including 3M Ventures, Intel Capital, and TDK Ventures. To partner with or learn more about how Metalenz is revolutionizing optical sensing in consumer electronics and beyond, visit: metalenz.com.
About Metalenz
Metalenz, founded in 2016, is the first company to commercialize meta-optics. Our meta-surface technology provides complex, multifunctional optical performance in a single semiconductor layer and enables moving large-scale production of optics into semiconductor foundries—printing lenses like computer chips. As a fabless semiconductor company, Metalenz is focused on the design and unique applications of meta-optics, transforming sensing across consumer, healthcare, and automotive applications.
The company has the exclusive worldwide license to the portfolio of foundational intellectual property relating to metasurfaces developed in the Capasso Lab at Harvard University and has more than 20 patents on innovations that simplify and improve optical devices across multiple markets.