Singleshot Multispectral Imaging via a Chromatic Metalens Array

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel single-shot multispectral imaging system using a chromatic metalens array that captures spectral data optically, enabling real-time imaging without heavy computational processing.

Contribution

The work presents a new optical multispectral imaging approach using a chromatic metalens array, reducing reliance on computational backend and enabling real-time, compact multispectral imaging.

Findings

Successfully extracted multispectral data at 8 spectral channels

Achieved good agreement between multispectral and RGB images

Demonstrated potential for compact, low-latency multispectral systems

Abstract

Real time, singleshot multispectral imaging systems are crucial for environment monitoring and biomedical imaging. Most singleshot multispectral imagers rely on complex computational backends, which precludes real time operations. In this work, we leverage the spectral selectivity afforded by engineered photonic materials to perform bulk of the multispectral data extraction in the optical domain, thereby circumventing the need for heavy backend computation. We use our imager to extract multispectral data for two real world objects at 8 predefined spectral channels in the 400 to 900 nm wavelength range. For both objects, an RGB image constructed using extracted multispectral data shows good agreement with an image taken using a phone camera, thereby validating our imaging approach. We believe that the proposed system can provide new avenues for the development of highly compact and low latency multispectral imaging technologies.