Exclusive: Your Smartphone Camera Could Get a Big Upgrade With This Tech
Metalenz just acquired PxE to ditch the 50-year-old color filter that has held back smartphone night photography.
Smartphones have standard cameras that capture light but lose around 60% of it due to a Bayer filter that blocks blue and green light before it reaches the sensor. A new technology from Metalenz, a Boston-based startup, called HoloCoder, aims to address this issue. HoloCoder is a microscopic structure that sits on top of the image sensor and diffracts light, redirecting it toward the sensor's pixels instead of blocking it, allowing the sensor to capture up to 2.5 times more light.
This increased light absorption can greatly enhance smartphone low-light photography and dynamic range, and it also has the potential to capture 3D depth information simultaneously. The acquisition of Israeli startup PxE Holographic Imaging, which developed HoloCoder, makes sense for Metalenz, as the company pioneered the commercialization of metasurfaces, flat-lens systems that bend light, reduce the need for multiple lens elements, and capture more light.
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