title: Digital cameras with designs inspired by the arthropod eye.
abstract: In arthropods, evolution has created a remarkably sophisticated class of imaging systems, with a wide-angle field of view, low aberrations, high acuity to motion and an infinite depth of field. A challenge in building digital cameras with the hemispherical, compound apposition layouts of arthropod eyes is that essential design requirements cannot be met with existing planar sensor technologies or conventional optics. Here we present materials, mechanics and integration schemes that afford scalable pathways to working, arthropod-inspired cameras with nearly full hemispherical shapes (about 160 degrees). Their surfaces are densely populated by imaging elements (artificial ommatidia), which are comparable in number (180) to those of the eyes of fire ants (Solenopsis fugax) and bark beetles (Hylastes nigrinus). The devices combine elastomeric compound optical elements with deformable arrays of thin silicon photodetectors into integrated sheets that can be elastically transformed from the planar geometries in which they are fabricated to hemispherical shapes for integration into apposition cameras. Our imaging results and quantitative ray-tracing-based simulations illustrate key features of operation. These general strategies seem to be applicable to other compound eye devices, such as those inspired by moths and lacewings (refracting superposition eyes), lobster and shrimp (reflecting superposition eyes), and houseflies (neural superposition eyes).
authors: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors: Young Min
authors: YM
authors: Song
authors: Yizhu
authors: Y
authors: Xie
authors: Viktor
authors: V
authors: Malyarchuk
authors: Jianliang
authors: J
authors: Xiao
authors: Inhwa
authors: I
authors: Jung
authors: Ki-Joong
authors: KJ
authors: Choi
authors: Zhuangjian
authors: Z
authors: Liu
authors: Hyunsung
authors: H
authors: Park
authors: Chaofeng
authors: C
authors: Lu
authors: Rak-Hwan
authors: RH
authors: Kim
authors: Rui
authors: R
authors: Li
authors: Kenneth B
authors: KB
authors: Crozier
authors: Yonggang
authors: Y
authors: Huang
authors: John A
authors: JA
authors: Rogers
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001000:Ants / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D001181:Arthropods / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry; D032701:Biomimetics; D001517:Coleoptera / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D054910:Compound Eye, Arthropod / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D019723:Endoscopes; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D010781:Photography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012825:Silicon
chemical_list: D012825:Silicon
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