Super Lens?

[Tom Westbrook]

Interesting article on Slashdot:

science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/04/0344203&from=rss (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/04/0344203&from=rss)

[Kevin M Bourque]

Huh. I read the article but I don't quite get it. Why does "negative refraction" get you better resolution? I thought resolution was limited by diffraction effects and was proportional to wavelength. That's why UV has better resolving power than red; it's got a shorter wavelength.

But, just because I don't understand it don't mean it ain't true.

[Tom Westbrook]

Having slept through most of college physics, I don't know, but isn't the diffraction here due to the properties of the lens material? The article said something rather vague about new lens materials, so maybe that has reduced diffraction issues? The problem with these popular science articles is that they tend to gloss over things quite a bit.

[John_4185]

The Super Lenses they refer to are tiny things. They aren't even considering typical camera lenses.

[Eric Leppanen]

Here are a couple more articles on the subject:

www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=5165414 (http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=5165414)

www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=417791 (http://www.economist.com/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=417791)

No one seems to be talking about conventional photography as an application.

[Duane Polcou]

"Wow, thats just super. I'll call the super. What are we having tonight? Soup? That'll be super."
- Robert Klien

[Struan Gray]

Diffraction doesn't get a look-in because the working distance is sub-wavelength. If you're using light, that makes the technique useful for perfect 1:1 reproduction of nanostructures, but completely useless for photography of rocks and trees.