Metalenz PolarID Ready for Production at UMC

BOSTON, Nov. 17, 2025 — UMC will employ its 40-nm process to produce the polarization-sensitive meta-optic layer of Metalenz’s biometric imaging system Polar ID and integrate it with sensor components — Samsung Electronics’ ISOCELL Vision 931 technology — using wafer-on-wafer bonding. According to Metalenz, with the qualification of the supply chain, the company is ready to ramp into volume production.

Polar ID is a compact biometric solution leveraging metasurface technology to capture polarized images in the near-IR with advanced global shutter technology. The system extracts information sets such as material and contour information to provide facial authentication with a single image, providing a 50% reduction in size and cost over traditional facial authentication technologies, which require multiple images.

Previously demonstrated on a smartphone reference platform powered by Snapdragon mobile processors, Metalenz said the product can be the technology can be integrated into any device, regardless of form factor. The technology is a finalist in the 2026 PRISM Awards.

Metalenz has worked with UMC in the past to produce its technology, as well as STMicroelectronics, with whom the company signed an expanded license agreement, following the selection of Samsung’s ISOCELL sensors. Metalenz is a spinout of Harvard University, founded in 2016.

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Published: November 2025

Glossary

polarization: Polarization refers to the orientation of oscillations in a transverse wave, such as light waves, radio waves, or other electromagnetic waves. In simpler terms, it describes the direction in which the electric field vector of a wave vibrates. Understanding polarization is important in various fields, including optics, telecommunications, and physics. Key points about polarization: Transverse waves: Polarization is a concept associated with transverse waves, where the oscillations occur...
metalens: A metalens, short for "metasurface lens," is a type of optical lens that uses nanostructured materials to manipulate light at a subwavelength scale. Unlike traditional lenses made of glass or other transparent materials, metalenses do not rely on the curvature of their surface to refract or focus light. Instead, they use carefully engineered patterns of nanostructures, such as nanoscale antennas or dielectric structures, to control the phase and amplitude of light across the lens's surface....
meta-optics: Meta-optics, also known as metasurface optics or flat optics, is a branch of optics that involves the design, fabrication, and utilization of artificial structures called metasurfaces to control and manipulate light at the nanoscale level. Unlike traditional optics, which typically involve bulky lenses and mirrors, meta-optics aims to achieve similar functionalities using ultrathin, planar structures composed of subwavelength nanostructures. Metasurfaces are typically composed of arrays of...

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