COLOUR IMAGING


True colours C


Keely Portway surveys the latest advances in colour imaging, creating fresh opportunities in certain applications


olour imaging usually refers to visible light, but extending an image sensor’s range to incorporate shorter


or longer wavelengths is a focus of much study. Researchers at RMIT University, in Melbourne, have developed a prototype photodetector that can see all shades of light, between ultraviolet and near infrared, where previously they were unable to sense more than one colour in one device. It is also around 1,000 times thinner than the smallest commercially available photodetector device. Teir challenge was that, generally in


photodetection technologies, reducing a material’s thickness can come at the expense of performance. Study lead author


18 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2020


Vaishnavi Krishnamurthi explained: ‘We managed to engineer a device that packs a powerful punch, despite being thinner than a nanometre, which is roughly a million times smaller than the width of a pinhead,’ she said.


Magic number Te versatility and usefulness of photodetectors is dependent on three factors: operating speed, sensitivity to lower levels of light and how much of the spectrum they can sense. Krishnamurthi said: ‘Typically, when engineers have tried improving a photodetector’s capabilities in one of those areas, at least one of the other capabilities has been diminished.’


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