The camera that can see through skin, look inside an egg - and even look around corners
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The letter A with no scattering (top), behind scattering plastic (centre) and re-imaged with the new technique
A camera that can see through skin and even frosted glass has been revealed.
The scientists behind the breakthrough say their research could even lead to cameras with the ability to see around corners.
The Israel team have found a novel trick to make their camera work. Reported in Nature Photonics, it uses natural light rather than lasers.
The technique uses what is called a spatial light modulator to 'undo' the scattering that makes objects opaque or non-reflecting.
'If you want to look to see an embryo developing inside an egg but the eggshell scatters everything, or you want to look through the skin, scattering is the main enemy there, and time-of-flight is not a good solution,' said Professor Yaron Silberberg of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, who led the research.
His solution uses a phenomenon known as spatial light modulators (SLMs).
SLMs modify what is known as the phase of an incoming light beam. They can correct the 'scattering' of light caused when it hits an object such as skin of frosted glass.
They are made up of an array of pixels that can correct for this by selectively slowing down some parts of the beam and allowing others to pass untouched - when an electric field is applied to a pixel, it changes the speed at which light passes through it.
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"Our results bring wavefront-shaping closer to practical applications and realize the vision of looking through walls and around corners."
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"Our results bring wavefront-shaping closer to practical applications and realize the vision of looking through walls and around corners."