{"paper":{"title":"MetaTele: Compact Refractive Metasurface Computational Telephoto Camera","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/","headline":"MetaTele achieves a telephoto ratio of 0.44 with 13 mm total track length by decoupling narrow-band structure capture from aberrated broadband color and fusing them with a one-step diffusion model.","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"eess.IV","authors_text":"Abhiram Gnanasambandam, Dilshan Godaliyadda, Hamid R. Sheikh, Harshana Weligampola, Qi Guo, Stanley H. Chan, Yuanrui Chen","submitted_at":"2026-04-08T21:33:28Z","abstract_excerpt":"Smartphone cameras face fundamental form-factor constraints that limit their optical magnification, primarily due to the difficulty of reducing a lens assembly's telephoto ratio, the ratio between total track length (TTL) and effective focal length (EFL). Currently, conventional refractive optics struggle to achieve a telephoto ratio below 0.5 without requiring multiple bulky elements to correct optical aberrations. In this paper, we introduce MetaTele, a novel optics-algorithm co-design that breaks this bottleneck. MetaTele explicitly decouples the acquisition of scene structure and color inf"},"claims":{"count":4,"items":[{"kind":"strongest_claim","text":"We demonstrate a MetaTele prototype, achieving an unprecedented telephoto ratio of 0.44 with a TTL of just 13 mm for RGB imaging.","source":"verdict.strongest_claim","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C1","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"weakest_assumption","text":"That the custom one-step diffusion model can reliably fuse the narrow-band structure image with the aberrated broadband color cue to produce high-quality, artifact-free RGB output across varied scenes and lighting conditions.","source":"verdict.weakest_assumption","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C2","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"one_line_summary","text":"A metasurface-refractive optics plus diffusion-model co-design achieves 0.44 telephoto ratio and 13 mm total track length for RGB imaging in a compact prototype.","source":"verdict.one_line_summary","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C3","attestation":"unclaimed"},{"kind":"headline","text":"MetaTele achieves a telephoto ratio of 0.44 with 13 mm total track length by decoupling narrow-band structure capture from aberrated broadband color and fusing them with a one-step diffusion model.","source":"verdict.pith_extraction.headline","status":"machine_extracted","claim_id":"C4","attestation":"unclaimed"}],"snapshot_sha256":"d2ea8400cae1fd37d654b47cfb7e5650efd331f939f6a058554f27d544374498"},"source":{"id":"2604.07614","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":"0f951f2f-d4a0-4cc4-a1fd-4c9e23bb09e6","model_set":{"reader":"grok-4.3"},"created_at":"2026-05-10T16:50:10.577435Z","strongest_claim":"We demonstrate a MetaTele prototype, achieving an unprecedented telephoto ratio of 0.44 with a TTL of just 13 mm for RGB imaging.","one_line_summary":"A metasurface-refractive optics plus diffusion-model co-design achieves 0.44 telephoto ratio and 13 mm total track length for RGB imaging in a compact prototype.","pipeline_version":"pith-pipeline@v0.9.0","weakest_assumption":"That the custom one-step diffusion model can reliably fuse the narrow-band structure image with the aberrated broadband color cue to produce high-quality, artifact-free RGB output across varied scenes and lighting conditions.","pith_extraction_headline":"MetaTele achieves a telephoto ratio of 0.44 with 13 mm total track length by decoupling narrow-band structure capture from aberrated broadband color and fusing them with a one-step diffusion model."},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2604.07614/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}