(PhysOrg.com) -- Duke University engineers have created a new
generation of lens that could greatly improve the capabilities
of telecommunications or radar systems to provide a wide field
of view and greater detail. But the lens they fashioned doesn't
look anything like a lens. While traditional lenses are made of
clear substances - like glass or plastic - with highly polished
surfaces, the new lens looks more like a miniature set of tan
Venetian blinds. Yet its ability to focus the direction of
electromagnetic rays passing through it dramatically surpasses
that of a conventional lens, the engineers say. The latest
advance was made possible by the ability to fabricate exotic
composite materials known as metamaterials. The metamaterial in
these experiments is not so much a single substance, but the
entire man-made structure which can be engineered to exhibit
properties not readily found in nature. The prototype lens,
which measures four inches by five inches and less than an inch
high, is made up of more than