Quantum Film technology may replace heavy cameras

With the advent of mobile camera phones, taking pictures of every day life has become so easy and tireless that it has come to be seen as an obsession with many. Taking pictures with you mobile phone and capturing every significant or not -so significant moment of your life has become very easy. But the problem with cell phone camera is their grainy picture quality and low resolution images.

The major culprit is the lens that is of cheap make and offers a limited resolution and ability to collect light. Light sensor is yet another problem area in such phones. It is a silicon chip that has photo detectors and when they are fitted into your phone they get shrunk and get limited amount

of light they capture.

To do away this a Menlo Park, CA-based start-up, InVisage has come up with a less costly, less complicated and more significant way to enhance the picture quality of your mobile phones on the sensor side. This latest technology called the Quantum Film helps let small camera sensors, like the ones used in mobile phones, capture more light than ever before, thus making some great crystal clear pictures.

The CEO of InVisage Mr. Jesse Lee said, "With such technology, the current three-megapixel camera found in the Apple iPhone could be turned into a 12-megapixel camera that works better in varying light conditions".

Quantum Film is a layer of quantum dots which are nothing but very small crystals placed on the top layer of the sensor that helps in efficient absorption of light and emit either photons or electrons. These electrons are then collected and sorted in the Chip’s circuitry. As a result we get a sensor that collects twice the light of any other standard chip and converts it into electricity twice as efficiently and is very cheap to make.

Hence by developing an image sensor using quantum dots instead of silicon, the company aims at increasing the sensor performance by more than four times. This may help make the cellphone cameras good enough for some serious photography with twice the dynamic range and even with the ability to have both light and dark features in the same picture. No longer have you had to carry those old bulky cameras with long lenses to take some awesome pictures.

The image sensor technology called the Quantum Film announced at the DEMO conference in Palm Springs, CA, is also said to dramatically improve Smartphone cameras. If used with your iPhone it would quite successfully take 12 MP pictures with better quality features as compared to 3 megapixel pictures it currently takes. The QuantumFilm technology aims to benefit cameras of all types but the biggest gainers would be the ones which have the greatest demand for small, high performance image sensors ideal for security cameras, car cameras and many other night-vision goggles used in military applications.

InVisage has partnered with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to integrate the quantum dots into the process of making silicon chip. The company expects to come up with its sample camera sensors in 10 months and market its first camera by the end of 2011.

View : | E-mail Article | Rate Article | |