Metalenz confirms Samsung ISOCELL vizion image sensor as light- engine for polar ID, the world’s smallest, most affordable and secure face unlock solution

Meta-optics industry leader Metalenz announced that it has chosen Samsung Electronics’ ISOCELL Vizion 931 as image sensor for Polar ID, the world’s only consumer-grade imaging system that can sense the full polarization state of light. Unlike other facial biometric solutions that require multiple different images to work, the polarization signature of a human face enables the fast and secure recognition and authentication from a single Polar ID image. The powerful simplicity of Polar ID enables a 50% size and cost reduction over traditional face unlock solutions, and partnership with Samsung provides industry image sensor performance and manufacturing scale to drive rapid smartphone adoption.

“Our collaboration with Metalenz is not just about combining technologies; it marks a pivotal advancement in biometric imaging capabilities, making face unlock solutions with enhanced security and affordability accessible on a global scale,” said CY Lee, Vice President of the Sensor Sales & Marketing Team at Samsung Electronics. “We are energized to collaborate with Metalenz, a company that shares our commitment to bringing visionary solutions to market.”

“Polar ID is poised to bring secure face unlock to hundreds of millions of phones and a whole new class of sensing to millions of people. Leveraging the performance and scale of Samsung’s ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor allows our Polar ID cameras to quickly and efficiently determine the polarization information in a scene, from which our imaging algorithms and machine learning models authenticate the Polar ID images,” said Rob Devlin, Metalenz CEO and co-founder. “The collaboration with Samsung marks a new era for mobile vision systems and provides Metalenz with a partner that has the proven quality and scale required to bring Polar ID to all phones.”

Within the Polar ID system,  Metalenz’ breakthrough polarization-sensitive meta-optic is combined with a derivative of the new ISOCELL Vizion 931 image sensor. Coupled with Metalenz technology, the same light-engine that is used in the ISOCELL Vizion 931 can now capture polarized images in the near infrared spectrum with quantum efficiency and advanced global shutter technology, allowing Polar ID cameras to enable the next generation of biometric imaging.

Polar ID cameras will make their public debut at MWC 2024 in Barcelona, where Metalenz will showcase the speed, security, compact footprint, and unparalleled affordability of this new face unlock solution integrated into a smartphone reference design powered by the new Snapdragon® 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform.