Poor lenses typically suffer from a phenomenon called chromatic aberration,\u00a0<\/strong>where colors are distorted due to different wavelengths. Chromatic aberration is usually identified by \u201cpurple fringing\u201d in an image’s areas of contrast and it can be pretty annoying if you are trying to get a clean and crisp image.<\/p>\n Newer lenses have their optics designed to minimize chromatic aberration, whereas older lenses tend to feature more color distortions. However, no matter what lens manufacturers do, they will always have to deal with color distortion if they are using curved lenses. But what if lenses weren\u2019t curved?<\/strong><\/p>\n This was the question proposed to a team of Harvard physicists who have successfully created a wafer-thin lens that uses only flat glass elements<\/strong>. The lens pushes the boundaries of what is physically possible in optics.<\/p>\n The lens works by using tiny, light-concentrating silicon antennas to instantaneously bend light wavelengths and direct them to a single point<\/strong>, instead of having the light bend at different\u00a0lengths due to light-wave speed. This new technology can hypothetically eliminate many of the conventional glass elements that are normally used to fix chromatic aberration inside a lens.<\/p>\n The following video shows the flat lens in-action. Notice the amount of bokeh<\/a> that can be achieved using this lens:<\/p>\n![\"Flat-Lens](\"http:\/\/pbblogassets.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2015-03-02-at-11.56.59-AM.png\")
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\nPhoto via Harvard School of Engineering<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n