Rajesh Menon, an associate professor in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Utah, has created an ultra-thin camera lens with the help of graduate students.
Current lenses are flat and can only focus on one color of light, but Menon’s defy laws of color and light through what he calls the “laws of diffraction.” 
Menon became very knowledgeable of the bending of light when he began working with solar panels five years ago. “It turns out that the angle at which light bends is very sensitive to color. Red color will bend a little differently than blue color and green color,” Menon said. “But you can actually get around it by doing some tricks we came up with.”
While the lenses are not available for commercial use yet, they could be as soon as a few years. Menon wants to get rid of the large lenses, like those on a DSLR camera, and replace it with a single lighter, thinner piece of glass.
NASA has even jumped on board and began funding some of the research. The associate professor’s lenses would make cameras easier to send into space.
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Photo by The Daily Utah Chronicle