NWO grant for developing multi-purpose flat optical components

More and better optics with less. That is the ambition of the AWAVE consortium, led by TU Delft. The researchers will develop a flat optical component that might replace all curved optical components, such as lenses, in the future. This flat component should also be easy to recycle and contain fewer harmful substances. Lamps, printers, cameras, chip machines, are a small sample of devices that contain optical elements. "Optics, the study of light, has always relied on curved surfaces, such as lenses, to shape light," says Nandini Bhattacharya, associate professor in the Department of Precision and Microsystems Engineering. "These optical components work only for specific wavelengths, and thus for certain colours.