Nature 454, 748-753
A Hemispherical Electronic Eye Camera Based on Compressible Silicon Optoelectronics
Ko et al., 2008
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7205/full/nature07113.html

Today's digital cameras are remarkable devices, but even the most advanced cameras lack the simplicity and quality of the human eye.  Now, Prof. John Rogers's group at UIUC and Prof. Yonggang Huang's group at Northwestern have built a spherical camera that follows the form and function of a human eye by fabricating a circuit onto a curved surface.  This work has been published in Nature and was highlighted as the cover issue on August 7, 2008.  Here are the website of NSF press release and Nature press release

NSF press release:  http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=112012&org=NSF

Nature press release:  http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080806/full/news.2008.1004.html

Abstract:
The human eye represents a remarkable imaging device, with many attractive design features.  Prominent among these is a hemispherical detector geometry, similar to that found in many other biological systems, that enables wide field of view and low aberrations with simple, few components, imaging optics.  This type of configuration is extremely difficult to achieve using established optoelectronics technologies, due to the intrinsically planar nature of the patterning, deposition, etching, materials growth and doping methods that exist for fabricating such systems. Here we report strategies that avoid these apparent limitations and we implement them to yield high performance, hemispherical electronic eye cameras based on single crystalline silicon technology.  The approach uses wafer-scale optoelectronics formed in unusual, two dimensionally compressible configurations and elastomeric transfer elements capable of transforming the planar layouts in which the systems are initially fabricated into hemispherical geometries for their final implementation.  In a general sense, these methods, taken together with our theoretical analyses of their associated mechanics, provide practical routes for integrating well developed planar device technologies onto the surfaces of complex curvilinear objects, suitable for diverse applications that cannot be addressed using conventional means.