The US metamaterials startup and Korean industrial giant confirm collaboration at Barcelona's Mobile World Congress event.
Metalenz, the Boston-based developer of meta-optics technology, has confirmed that it is collaborating with Samsung to bring its novel biometric sensor to smart phones. Revealed during the giant Mobile World Congress event being held in Barcelona, Spain, this week, the partnership pairs Metalenz’s polarization-based biometrics with a new version of Samsung’s high-performance “ISOCELL” near-infrared sensors.
The idea is to use the unique polarization signature of the human face to create what is claimed to be the world's “smallest, most affordable, and secure biometric face unlock solution for smart phones”.
Polar ID
Described as the world’s only consumer-grade imaging system that can sense the full polarization state of light, Metalenz’s “Polar ID” product is unlike other facial biometric solutions, in that it only requires a single image to work.
Launched last year, the approach is said to reduce the size and cost of existing facial identification technologies by half, with the Samsung partnership providing both a supply of high-end image sensors and an obvious route to scale the technology in smart phones.
According to the two firms, the Samsung sensor enables Polar ID to capture polarized images in the near-infrared spectrum with industry-leading quantum efficiency and advanced global shutter technology. That performance is thanks to the design of the sensing chip, which incorporates so-called “Front Deep Trench Isolation (FDTI)” to create an insulation layer between pixels along with back-side scattering to maximize overall light absorption and quantum efficiency.
Polarization advantage
Formed as a spin-out from Federico Capasso’s Harvard University research group, Metalenz has previously collaborated with electronics giant STMicroelectronics on a commercial time-of-flight sensor, and has also agreed a manufacturing partnership with the Taiwanese chip foundry United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC).
Its “Orion” meta-optic dot projectors have since featured in a series of biometric security scanners produced by the Chinese firm Dilusense, before Metalenz unveiled “Polar ID” in October 2023.
At the time, Metalenz said that existing facial security sensors - most commonly associated with relatively recent iPhone models - required expensive, bulky, and often power-hungry optical modules, limiting the technology to a few high-end models.
“Polar ID harnesses meta-optic technology to extract additional information such as facial contour details and to detect human tissue liveness from a single image,” it explained.
“It is significantly more compact and cost effective than incumbent ‘structured light’ face authentication solutions, which require an expensive dot-pattern projector and multiple images.”