A compact new infrared imager has been developed that can see through smog and fog, electronic components and human skin.
Infrared systems are not new but tend to require bulky, complex equipment.
The camera and display are usually separate and they tend to use expensive inorganic semiconductors that often contain toxic elements, including lead and arsenic.
The new imager, developed by researchers from the University of California San Diego, is a small device that combines the sensors and display into a single slim unit.
The electrical engineers who designed it say that it is versatile and relatively cheap to make.
It also uses organic semiconductors, which makes it better suited for biomedical uses, but can create images with higher resolutions than many models using all inorganic components.
One application highlighted in the journal Advanced Functional Materials was the ability to provide a clear image of the blood vessels inside a volunteer’s hands, while also recording their heart rate.
Another demonstration showed them providing a clear image of a sign in a room filled with thick smog.
A third showed them reading a photomask placed behind an opaque silicon wafer.
The infrared light used in the system is able to pass through smog, fog and silicon.
As well as biomedical applications, this could make it useful for autonomous vehicle navigation in foggy conditions and allowing silicon chips to be inspected for any defects.
System makes invisible infrared light visible to the human eye
The system makes use of a part of the infrared spectrum that is just outside the visible part, essentially making light visible that is usually invisible to the human eye.
The visible spectrum involves wavelengths of 400 and 700 nanometres (nm), while the shortwave infrared is in the portion between 1,000 and 1,400nm.
This is different from thermal imaging, which uses much longer wavelengths emitted from a body or other objects.
The infrared system works by directing this shortwave, low-energy infrared light onto the object or area concerned.
It then converts the beams that reflect back towards the reader into shorter, high-energy wavelengths that are visible to the human eye, showing the results on the display screen.
The device uses an electronic process to ‘upconvert’ the low-energy photons to high-energy ones.
Most existing imagers do not use an electrical upconversion process, requiring a detector to collect the raw data, a computer to process it, and a separate display to present it to the observer.
Today’s news was brought to you by TD SYNNEX – the UK’s number one solutions distributor.
