Transparent smartphone application to obtain information in the real world. (Photo credit: Jérôme Lapointe)
Engineers have created a laser-written light-guiding systems that could embed the display glass of smartphones with layer upon layer of sensors.
One example-system that the authors created is a temperature sensor that consists of one straight and one curved waveguide. When the glass heats up, it expands and changes the path length of the waveguides. By measuring how the light that emerges from one waveguide interferes with light from the other, the device can measure the temperature of anything it touches.
This technology could be applied to glass now used in most smartphones.
Original research paper published in the Optics Express on September 17, 2014.
Names and affiliations of selected authors
