Dietikon superlenses
China’s first folding mobile phone contains a camera lens made in Zurich. Five years ago, Optotune, an ETH spin-off company, failed with this plan.
Large lenses for barcode readers, smaller for mobile phones: CEO Manuel Aschwanden at company headquarters in Dietikon with a load of Optotune lenses.
Photo: Sabina Bobst
How a housefly can be fascinating: in the photo you can see all the hairs that stand up on its pronotum. The thousand facets of the eyes sparkle like red-orange gemstones. The close-up, so sharp that the tiny animal looks as big as a poodle, does not come from an expensive National Geographic animal documentary, or a brilliant BBC production. No, Manuel Aschwanden’s eight-year-old daughter took the photo over the weekend. With daddy’s smartphone.
It is the high-end device with a folding screen from the Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi that was presented a few weeks ago. Aschwanden received one of the first Swiss copies. Because the macro lens that makes this incredible image possible is the product of 13 years of development work, Aschwanden’s development work, first at ETH, then at his Optotune company in Dietikon.
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