Metalenz is a startup born out of a research group at Harvard University and was founded by CEO Robert Devlin and physicist Federico Capasso. I’ve been covering its development ever since the company emerged from stealth mode in 2021. That’s when it unveiled its metasurfaces technology—a flat-lens system that takes up far less space than the traditional multi-lens elements used in most smartphones today.
The iPhone 14 Pro, for example, has seven lens elements (layers of glass or plexiglass) stacked above the camera sensor. Having multiple lens elements improves image clarity, captures more light, and corrects issues such as chromatic aberration (where colors are visible on the fringes of images). But it also adds more complexity and requires more space in the smartphone. Metalenz’s metasurfaces is a single lens that uses nanostructures to bend light rays toward the camera sensor, performing the job of multiple lens elements in a much smaller package.
That brings us to Polar ID. Metalenz has been working on a system that can authenticate a person’s face based on their polarization signature. By tying this signature with facial recognition, the system can recognize and authenticate an individual whether they are wearing a surgical face mask or sunglasses, or even when someone is trying to spoof your face with a picture or 3D mask. It just needs to match the polarization signature of your skin.
Apple’s approach in Face ID uses a structured light transmitter, a pricey module that also takes up a lot of space (hence the chunky notch, or pill, at the top of the iPhone’s display). This technology is derived from PrimeSense, a company Apple acquired in 2013 (the very same that was behind the 3D sensor in Microsoft’s Kinect). Devlin says Apple holds several key patents around the technology, which is one of the reasons there is a high barrier for competitors to wade in. It’s also just too complicated and expensive for Android manufacturers to replicate the experience, though a few have tried over the years.