Researchers at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed a high-resolution bionic eye that combines full-color vision, an ultrawide field of view and motion detection inside the sensor itself. The study was published in the journal Nature Materials on November 13, 2026.
The device uses a hemispherical tandem artificial retina, with layers sensitive to blue, green and red, and reaches a density of 1,905 pixels per inch and 367,500 pixels in total. That is a huge leap from the team's first-generation bionic eye, from 2020, which had only 100 pixels.
Full-color vision on a curved sensor
The field of view exceeds 160 degrees with aberration correction, and the spectral response spans 300 to 800 nanometers, enabling full-color imaging. Fabrication was made possible by a novel 3D laser fabrication approach on hemispherical substrates, which solves one of the main obstacles for curved sensors: creating dense pixel arrays on highly curved surfaces, something conventional lithography, designed for flat substrates, cannot do.
Motion detection inside the sensor
Beyond capturing images, the system detects motion directly in the sensor, without transmitting complete image sequences for external processing. In the study's tests, this approach reduced bandwidth demand by more than 99.95% compared with conventional frame-based imaging, with a motion recognition accuracy of 98.6%.
“Our first-generation bionic eye, developed in 2020, contained only 100 sensing pixels. In this latest study, our 3D laser-assisted fabrication process enabled us to increase the number of sensing pixels to nearly 400,000 pixels, while equipping the device with an ultrawide 160-degree field of view and event-driven motion detection,” said Professor Fan Zhiyong, who led the study.
Next steps: over 1 million pixels
The team's next goal is to pass 1 million sensing pixels. The technology is seen as a path toward compact vision sensors for robots and autonomous systems, which need to perceive their environment with less data and less energy.
The study's first author is Dr. Long Zhenghao, a former doctoral student and postdoctoral researcher at HKUST, now an assistant professor at Fudan University. Fan is the corresponding author, and the research was conducted in collaboration with Professor Zi Yunlong of HKUST (Guangzhou).
Image credit: Nature Materials (2026). The featured image shows the high-resolution bionic eye device developed by HKUST.
Sources: Tech Xplore · Nature Materials — DOI 10.1038/s41563-026-02685-5
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