Metalenz Partners with Samsung on Facial Recognition Tech

Metalenz will use Samsung Electronics’ ISOCELL Vizion 931 technology as the image sensor component for its "Polar ID" imaging system. Metalenz offers the solution for facial biometrics. The partnership with Samsung provides manufacturing scale to drive rapid adoption of the technology within the smartphone industry, Metalenz said, and that Polar ID is under early evaluation with several leading smartphone OEMs.

The imaging system is to specifically combine Metalenz’s polarization-sensitive meta-optic with a derivative of the ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor to capture polarized images in the near-IR with advanced global shutter technology. The ISOCELL Vizion 931 achieves 60% quantum efficiency at 850-nm infrared light wavelength and 38% at 940 nm. According to Metalenz, the Polar ID system enables authentication using a single image, while providing a 50% size and cost reduction over traditional facial authentication technologies, which require multiple images.
Metalenz’s polarization meta-optics on chip. The company has established a partnership with Samsung to utilize the ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor in its Polar ID facial recognition system. Courtesy of Metalenz.

Metalenz’s polarization meta-optics on chip. The company has established a partnership with Samsung to utilize the ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor in its Polar ID facial recognition system. Courtesy of Metalenz.

Metalenz’s polarization meta-optics on chip. The company has established a partnership with Samsung to use the ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor in its Polar ID facial recognition system. Courtesy of Metalenz.

“Leveraging the performance and scale of Samsung’s ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor allows our Polar ID cameras to quickly and efficiently determine the polarization information in a scene, from which our imaging algorithms and machine learning models authenticate the Polar ID images,” said Rob Devlin, Metalenz CEO and cofounder.

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Published: February 2024

Glossary

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...
infrared: Infrared (IR) refers to the region of the electromagnetic spectrum with wavelengths longer than those of visible light, but shorter than those of microwaves. The infrared spectrum spans wavelengths roughly between 700 nanometers (nm) and 1 millimeter (mm). It is divided into three main subcategories: Near-infrared (NIR): Wavelengths from approximately 700 nm to 1.4 micrometers (µm). Near-infrared light is often used in telecommunications, as well as in various imaging and sensing...
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...

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