Superlens

A superlens, or super lens, is a lens which uses metamaterials to go beyond the diffraction limit. The diffraction limit is a feature of conventional lenses and microscopes that limits the fineness of their resolution. Many lens designs have been proposed that go beyond the diffraction limit in some way, but constraints and obstacles face each of them. Metamaterials scientists A superlens, or super lens, is a lens which uses metamaterials to go beyond the diffraction limit. The diffraction limit is a feature of conventional lenses and microscopes that limits the fineness of their resolution. Many lens designs have been proposed that go beyond the diffraction limit in some way, but constraints and obstacles face each of them. In 1873 Ernst Abbe reported that conventional lenses are incapable of capturing some fine details of any given image. The super lens is intended to capture such details. The limitation of conventional lenses has inhibited progress in the biological sciences. This is because a virus or DNA molecule cannot be resolved with the highest powered conventional microscopes. This limitation extends to the minute processes of cellular proteins moving alongside microtubules of a living cell in their natural environments. Additionally, computer chips and the interrelated microelectronics are manufactured to smaller and smaller scales. This requires specialized optical equipment, which is also limited because these use the conventional lens. Hence, the principles governing a super lens show that it has potential for imaging a DNA molecule and cellular protein processes, or aiding in the manufacture of even smaller computer chips and microelectronics. Furthermore, conventional lenses capture only the propagating light waves. These are waves that travel from a light source or an object to a lens, or the human eye. This can alternatively be studied as the far field. In contrast, a superlens captures propagating light waves and waves that stay on top of the surface of an object, which, alternatively, can be studied as both the far field and the near field. In the early 20th century the term 'superlens' was used by Dennis Gabor to describe something quite different: a compound lenslet array system. An image of an object can be defined as a tangible or visible representation of the features of that object. A requirement for image formation is interaction with fields of electromagnetic radiation. Furthermore, the level of feature detail, or image resolution, is limited to a length of a wave of radiation. For example, with optical microscopy, image production and resolution depends on the length of a wave of visible light. However, with a superlens, this limitation may be removed, and a new class of image generated. Electron beam lithography can overcome this resolution limit. Optical microscopy, on the other hand cannot, being limited to some value just above 200 nanometers. However, new technologies combined with optical microscopy are beginning to allow increased feature resolution (see sections below). One definition of being constrained by the resolution barrier, is a resolution cut off at half the wavelength of light. The visible spectrum has a range that extends from 390 nanometers to 750 nanometers. Green light, half way in between, is around 500 nanometers. Microscopy takes into account parameters such as lens aperture, distance from the object to the lens, and the refractive index of the observed material. This combination defines the resolution cutoff, or microscopy optical limit, which tabulates to 200 nanometers. Therefore, conventional lenses, which literally construct an image of an object by using 'ordinary' light waves, discard information that produce very fine, and minuscule details of the object that are contained in evanescent waves. These dimensions are less than 200 nanometers. For this reason, conventional optical systems, such as microscopes, have been unable to accurately image very small, nanometer-sized structures or nanometer-sized organisms in vivo, such as individual viruses, or DNA molecules. The limitations of standard optical microscopy (bright-field microscopy) lie in three areas: Live biological cells in particular generally lack sufficient contrast to be studied successfully, because the internal structures of the cell are mostly colorless and transparent. The most common way to increase contrast is to stain the different structures with selective dyes, but often this involves killing and fixing the sample. Staining may also introduce artifacts, apparent structural details that are caused by the processing of the specimen and are thus not a legitimate feature of the specimen.