Columbia Engineering researchers have created the first flat lens capable of correctly focusing a large range of colors of any polarization to the same focal spot without the need for any additional elements. Only a micron thick, their revolutionary "flat" lens is much thinner than a sheet of paper and offers performance comparable to top-of-the-line compound lens systems. The findings of the team, led by Nanfang Yu, associate professor of applied physics, are outlined in a new study, published by Light: Science & Applications.

Prof. Yuan Yang, Prof. Nanfang Yu, and Jyotirmoy Mandal (a doctoral student in Yang's group) invented a high-performance exterior PDRC polymer coating with nano-to-microscale air voids that acts as a spontaneous air cooler and can be fabricated, dyed, and applied like paint on rooftops, buildings, water tanks, vehicles, even spacecraft—anything that can be painted. They used a solution-based phase-inversion technique that gives the polymer a porous foam-like structure. The study is published online in Science.