optique

The word “lens” takes its name from the Latin word for lentil. Both are both hemispheric shapes bound together on their flat surface. So a “flat lens” sounds like a contradiction of terms. Yet that is exactly what Andrei Faraon is working on at California Institute of Technology’s Nanoscale and Quantum Optics Lab.

Additive manufacturing, also called three-dimensional (3D) printing, has become a robust production technology with many advantages over conventional fabrication techniques, including lower energy and material requirements.