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2026

Optical Convolution Spectrometer

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A team led by Qixiang Cheng at the University of Cambridge has unveiled a novel spectrometer whose unique mathematical foundation is the convolution theorem. The authors’ “convolution spectrometer” delivers unparalleled performance in compact systems and offers significant advantages in both hardware design and computational efficiency. The fully packaged unit measures only a few centimeters in size, costs as little as about US$10, and achieves a bandwidth of 2,400 cm⁻¹ (approximately 500 nm) in the near-infrared region. The device enables high-precision analysis of complex spectra, with sampling and processing times on the sub-second scale, demonstrating its broad applicability in the near-infrared spectroscopy domain—including industrial and agricultural analytics as well as health monitoring. The spectrometer system can classify a wide range of solid samples, such as plastics, pharmaceuticals, coffee, flour, and tea, with 100% accuracy, and it can quantitatively determine the concentrations of aqueous and organic solutions with detection precision that surpasses that of commercial benchtop spectrometers. Furthermore, the authors have achieved non-invasive sensing of human biomarkers, including skin moisture (mean absolute error = 2.49%), blood alcohol (1.70 mg dL⁻¹), blood lactate (0.81 mmol L⁻¹), and blood glucose (0.36 mmol L⁻¹), underscoring the potential of this new class of spectrometers for low-cost, high-precision, portable, and/or wearable spectral metrology.

The research findings were published in Nature Photonics on April 15, 2026, under the title “Optical convolutional spectrometer.”