What if you could simplify a complex camera lens system down to a single flat surface—and mass produce it with the same machines that make computer chips?
Federico Capasso, Harvard professor, optics pioneer, and co-founder of Metalenz, joins Ben Kaplan to talk about how metasurfaces and nano-optics could transform everything from smartphones to AR glasses to medical imaging. Capasso, known for inventing the quantum cascade laser, explains how replacing traditional curved lenses with ultra-thin, chip-made alternatives could revolutionize not just technology, but global supply chains too.
This is an episode about science at its best, bold, disruptive, and full of real-world promise. It’s about interdisciplinary curiosity, the entrepreneurial mindset in academia, and the deep tech innovations poised to change how we see… literally.
About Federico Capasso
Federico Capasso is an Italian-American applied physicist and is one of the inventors of the quantum cascade laser during his work at Bell Laboratories. He is currently on the faculty of Harvard University.
