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A team of scientists has created a camera so small that it could be injected into the body via a syringe.
The University of Stuttgart team say the device took only "a few hours to design, manufacture and test", but that it was still able to yield "high optical performances and tremendous compactness".
The lens is just 100 micrometers – or 0.1 millimetres – wide, around the same size as a grain of salt, but is still able to focus on images from 3.0mm and relay them via a 1.7 metre optical fibre.
Because the camera is so small, it could be fitted into the head of a syringe and injected into human organs or the brain, the scientists say. Although, to do so, any regulatory hurdles and tests would need to be completed.
Researchers say it could be used as "minimally-intrusive endoscopes for exploring inside the human body", or deployed in "virtually invisible" security monitors or robots with "autonomous vision".
"Endoscopic applications will allow for non-invasive and non-destructive examination of small objects in the medical as well as the industrial sector," the team write.
The research has been published in Nature Photonics.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
