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.