Lens and camera sensor technology tends to co-evolve. As cameras drive to smaller and smaller pixel sizes with growing formats, lenses need to be designed to match those higher capabilities. However, they evolve at vastly different rates from one another, with the advancement of sensor technology vastly outpacing that of optics. Commercially available cameras using CCD imaging sensors were only developed in the 1970s (by Kodak-Eastman1), and at the time optics technology had been around for hundreds of years. As a point of reference, Galileo designed his eponymous telescope in 16102, and photography started in the late 1700s3. While optics had a pretty large head start, sensor technology would only take about 30 years to match, and then surpass, what optics were capable of in terms of their ability to resolve small pixels.
From a fundamental perspective (ignoring new advancements such as optical metameterials and their negative refractive indices), optics technology has not changed since lenses first started being used. Essentially, the ability to design and manufacture more precise optical components and systems have improved greatly, but a lens is still a lens. It is now commonplace to see sensors in the industrial marketplace with over 20 megapixel (MP) resolution at a reasonable price and with good performance, all packed into a C-mount housing, representing a 2000X increase from the first CCD sensor invented1. Optics have not advanced this far in the same time period.