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PORTLAND, Ore. — Just as photographic film was mostly replaced by silicon image chips, now quantum film threats to replace the conventional CMOS image sensors in digital cameras. Made from materials similar to conventional film—a polymer with embedded particles—instead of silver grains like photographic film the embedded particles are quantum dots. Quantum films can image scenes with more pixel resolution, according to their inventors, InVisage Inc., offering four-times better sensitivity for ultra-high resolution sensors that are cheaper to manufacture.
Read More: EETimes
Thanks David
cr
First!
your dumb
awesome hopefully this is cheap to market and canon snaps it up
i want to see some samples
Interesting!
So we can have the EOS-1D Mark V with ISO 102400 that looks like the current ISO 12800 of the EOS-1D Mark IV!
Does this type of sensor have any “rolling shutter” issues?
Holy Quantum Dots Batman!
lol but the Batman is out of place.
the article fails to address two important points that should raise at least yellow flags to any reader.
firstly, no drawbacks to this new technique are mentioned. I find it hard to believe this would be the case, and would like to see some point-counterpoint regarding implementation of this “painted-on” quantum dot technology versus traditional CMOS sensors.
secondly, no timetable is discussed for mainstream implementation of the technology. a year or two ago there was discussion of “black silicon” technology that could double the sensitivity of sensors as well, but little has been said about it since. I’d be excited for either of these to pan out and make it to market but I wouldn’t hold my breath
you’re dumb
Going back to getting film processed? Limited shots on one roll? Post-processing costs (developing etc)?
No thanks. I’ll stick to digital.
Yeah, and they’re first planning on using these for the iPhone and such…
This is digital…
The company (established in 2006) doesn’t even have the real product yet, it just made an announcement and to draw attention to it they made sure to use the word “quantum” (nothing screams real science like quantum after all!).
Well actually, reading their webpage at the moment it reads more like pseudoscience. Let’s see…
“It is based on quantum dots — semiconductors with unique light-capture properties.”
What are quantum dots, what is unique about their nature?
“It works by capturing an imprint of a light image”
Capturing imprint of a light image? What does it actually do – light consists of photons, you can count them as they hit the sensor, how do you “capture an imprint”?
“and then employing the silicon beneath it to read out the QuantumFilm and turn it into versatile digital signals.”
What is a versatile digital signal?
Well, I wish them well and hope that a new technology will emerge from this or some other company but so far it reads like Star Trek-like technobabble.
I think you will have rolling shutter problems as long as they use a traveling slit shutter. How about a shutter using that system they use to protect pilots eyes from nuclear explosions. Maybe they do not have to go that far. LCDs are getting pretty fast, but I don’t think they shut out enough light yet.
As a quantum dot researcher myself, I have a tough time believing that this technology will be feasible in the near future.
ROFL
Reading the actual article before replying is good for you!
it seems like typical pr stuff from a small company trying to get venture capitol to spring for a few more million.
My take is that Sony would have a lot to lose if this were a threat to their sensor business. They would have no trouble coughing up a billion in cash to buy a company with $30 million invested. Why haven’t they? Perhaps the technology is more wishful than substantial?
This isn’t anything to worry (or hope) about until it gets into a real product — preferably a real DSLR or Micro-4/3 EVIL camera, not just a phone (which is all they’re talking about at this point).
The Foveon sensor was supposed to take over the world too. Hasn’t happened yet.
A little reality check: first, as others pointed out, there are always these type of ideas being floated and tested. That doesn’t mean the technology will ever make it to market.
And assuming this would end up being the most commercially viable product to replace the current CMOS chips, then it’s a long way from implementation. I don’t think many people grasp just how much of an engineering challenge it is to actually bring this to a working model, not to mention the business aspects.
So basically this is a story about an experiment that may or may not pan out, and even if it does, it will take years to make it to market. I don’t think we’re going to see the current style of CMOS chips go away any time soon.
It’s a thought provoking idea but at this point it’s nothing more.
If you see a new technology being introduced from the bottom of the market (see cellphone cameras) you can be almost 100% it will be crap for the high end applications (like pro MF/SLR sensors in this instance).
I would say nobody is threatening to replace anything at this stage, make a note in your book so that in a couple years you can ask “where the f*** is my quantum film sensor already?”
So is this the film where in pictures taken of your cats, half the time in the images, they will be dead and the other half, alive?
As an effective layman who is generally aware of the time to market for “fantastic” “new” “scientific” discoveries like this, so do I.
Black Silicon Discovery Could Change Digital Photography, Night Vision Forever
With the accidental discovery of “black silicon,” Harvard physicists may have very well changed the digital photography, solar power and night vision industries forever. What is black silicon, you say? Well, it’s just as it sounds. Black silicon. It’s what this revolutionary new material does that’s important, starting with light sensitivity. Early indications show black silicon is 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than a traditional silicon wafer.
To create the special silicon, Harvard physicist Eric Mazur shined a super powerful laser onto a silicon wafer. The laser’s output briefly matches all the energy produced by the sun falling onto the Earth’s entire surface at a given moment in time. To spice the experiment up, he also had researchers apply sulfur hexafluoride, which the semiconductor industry uses to make etchings in silicon for circuitry. Seriously, he did this just for kicks and to secure more funding for an old project.
“I got tired of metals and was worrying that my Army funding would dry up,” he said. “I wrote the new direction into a research proposal without thinking much about it — I just wrote it in; I don’t know why,” he said.
The new experiment made the silicon black to the naked eye. Under an electron microscope, however, the dark sheen was revealed to be thousands, if not millions, of tiny spikes. As we said above, those spikes had an amazing effect on the light sensitivity of the wafer. Mazur said the material also absorbs about twice as much visible light as traditional silicon, and can detect infrared light that is invisible to today’s silicon detectors.
And there’s no change to the manufacturing process, Mazur said, so existing semiconductor facilities can create black silicon without much additional effort or, more importantly, money
http://gizmodo.com/5062412/black-silicon-discovery-could-change-digital-photography-night-vision-forever
In the industry, which manufactures solar cells, night vision devices, as well as digital cameras and camcorders, is planned to something that later could well be called “industrial revolution”. It is the application of new material, now known as “black silicon”. Himself material for over ten years old, but its commercial use can only start this year.
And The Name of The company is (Sony)
Ck This Out
http://www.sionyx.com/
The image sensor technology roadmap is rapidly approaching a fundamental limit as state of the art pixel dimensions reach 1µm. At these dimensions the active photodiode area of each pixel approach the wavelength of visible light and signal strength is greatly diminished.
SiOnyx’s shallow junction photonics technology is poised to redefine silicon based imaging.
The SiOnyx laser process dramatically enhances silicon’s detector response enabling 1 µm SiOnyx Black Silicon pixels that produce more signal than 36 µm traditional silicon pixels.
This Is Better and Inexpensive
QuantumFilm is applied as a thin film on top of traditional CMOS wafers. This thin film now absorbs all of the photons on the top surface of the pixel. QuantumFilm has 100% fill factor and all of the photons are absorbed in very short depth. This means better light capture in low-light and true-to-life photos.
Today’s image sensors are flawed. And this flaw forces camera users to choose between the convenience of a mobile phone or portable camera and the quality images captured by a large camera. This compromise is required because the current pixel technology is extremely inefficient. The standard silicon pixel will lose 50% of the incoming light to metal lines or transistors blocking the silicon below, commonly called the fill factor. And of the light that does make it through, the silicon itself is only able to convert about 50% of the photons to electrons.This conversion, known as quantum efficiency, cannot be changed. In total, only about 25% of the light that hits the pixel is being converted to an actual image by your camera.
imagine a Black silicon CMOS Base sensor and aply QuantumFilm
and walla
no more green vission in the night ( monocromatic )
the night turned in full color
cmos(in hose) + gapless(in hose) + blacksilicon + QuantumFilm in the hands of CANON = Point and shot whit 100mp and iso 102400
and a 5D mark III whit iso of 409600 no Flash need it
AF sensor cover whit QuantumFilm the same 9 AF points no up Grade
Haaaa
This is a better article about this subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/technology/22quantum.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger's_cat
Grrr the link changed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat
“quantum mechanics implies, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead.”
Grrr copy & paste it
Yeah, like these nanodrugs for selective curing of the cancer. Maybe for 20 years, when I’m gone…
Foveon X3 Sensor needs to benefit from a large camera company like Canon/Nikon/Sony before their sensor dominates. It captures photos in a similar way to film. All it needs now is a better processing tech behind it. From what I’ve read about the Sigma cameras with X3 sensor in it, they produce awesome photos, it’s just that the awesome photos are very hit and miss and difficult to produce unless you’re at a fairly knowledgeable and sophisticated level of photographic prowess. i.e. Auto mode sucks, Full Manual mode is awesome. So unless someone buys out Sigma, or Sigma sell off Foveon. The sensor is going to remain in the niche camera market.
Wonder which camera is on the home page, Looks like a Nikon but can’t identify it.
It’s not!!
It is. Go back to your cave.
Yes. These days you have to stretch any possible applications of any research you do just to get funded. If this technology ever makes it into a product, let alone when, is written in the stars. I am not holding my breath.
The first problem I see with a paint-on solution is homogeneity, i.e. controlling the density of quantum dots in the paint, and then their density on the surface – on the scale of pixels.
The next interesting point is how these dots respond to different wavelengths=colors of light.
Quantum dots are actually well established – basically it means making a structure that is about the size of the wavelength, e.g. the of the Schroedinger wave function of an electron in silicon. Semiconductor lasers, as you find in your CD and DVD readers, are based on a similar effect. Those emit light, so that quantum dots can be used to detect light is not really surprising.
The rest is marketing speak for the obvious. Once you have captured a photon and converted it into some kind of excited state of the quantum dot, you have to read it out – through conventional Si electronics. From that point on there is very little difference between this technology and, say, CMOS or CCD detectors.
The cat is both alive and dead as long as nobody checks to find out. As soon as somebody looks, it instantaneously makes up its mind (a miraculous thing for a cat to do!) and is either one or the other.
One concern I’d have would be for imprinting and longevity, ie. would the material fatigue or burn-in over time, or would there be other ways in which it would degrade?
Quantum dot theory is established, not the practical methods of manufacture.
What I was pointing out is the technobabble and vagueness of the language on their website. There is absolutely nothing solid or scientific about it. It’s just a hazy pitch at potential investors.
I like the jump from “absorbs about twice as much visible light” to “100 to 500 times more sensitive”.
If it is so marvellous, they should at least be able to make solar cells from it. A gain of 2 in efficiency there would be quite welcome, and the process is by far not as delicate as making high-resolution CMDS.
In any case, they show the mirror, not the sensor.
I wonder if they can get a reliable and consistent laser treatment over the active area of a whole FF or even APS-C sized sensor.
When your pixels are smaller than the wavelength, more pixels will not resolve additional details. Even now a lot of pictures are taken with closed apertures that take you beyond the diffraction limit.
The interest of the technology is not so much to make pixels even smaller, but to get better sensitivity out of the present pixel size.
The gain is strongest in the infrared, much less in the visible. So the devices that stand to gain most are night vision and remote heat sensing.
Agreed on both points.
I’d call production of small number of QDs under laboratory conditions established, but certainly not industrial mass production.
So:
Silicon converts 50% of light (the rest lost elsewhere)
Black Si gains a factor of 2 in efficiency
Quantum dot film another factor of 2 at least
that makes a quantum efficiency of 200% or more.
A shame that photomultipliers have already been invented.
“This thin film now absorbs all of the photons on the top surface of the pixel.”
Nothing can absorb 100% photons, except your imagination.
You’re dumb.
The “rolling shutter” problem in DSLR video capture does not have anything to do with the mechanical shutter, as that stays fully open. It is caused by the way data is read from most CMOS sensors.
You forgot to add Foveon (2x) and back-illuminated (2x) for about ISO eleventy billion. (I’ve haven’t heard of “in hose” technology before, but it sounds intriguing. What is it? Some kind of nanotube?)
Many of these are mutually exclusive. However, some combinations, like back-illumination with Foveon or black silicon would probably work.
Hose = nanotubes tecnology to chanel the light to the gapless photodiodes to avoid see each other preventing beer party and longevity
And a black hole of course.
me too am dumb, but all of you are dumber!!!!
no they are only going to serve to companies without their own sensorfab.
Nikon is the first one to jump in with the biggest order.then pentax and then Oly.
I have some question:
1. If the light sensitivities is 4x, under the strong sun light, can we still using IOS100 or need to have ISO 12.5?
2. If the film absorbed the light and kept within it, can we still be able to shoot high fps?
only CMOS or CCD also ;)
lulz
+1 american education system
only CMOS ( Cmos are more active and promiscuos)
Kwantum Film? Pssshh, for 60% cheaper, you can get 100% more quality with The Legendary CanON 135mm f2 Prime! Real men use primes. If Jesus was a photographer, he would use Primes only, and be so badass at photography because if it.
Not true. This is a sensor type, not company.
Batman, you will fall!
Signed, the Joker
I’m curious – why not?
In house – made by Canon (unlike Nikon which buys its sensors).
1) It is the wrong way ’round: Can we still keep ISO 100 or 200, or is the base sensitivity pushed up to ISO 400 or 800?
2) Yes, that is not the problem. More absorption just means a larger signal to process by the electronics, which is easier. It is not like sponge that absorbs water, and when you squeeze it all (most) the water comes back out again ;-)
Actually, “in hose” makes just as much sense (0)…
it could allso be that they use babble for the reason of protection the technology .. so some able ppl at say IBM dont steal it.
I understand that it become too sensitive. our ISO100 became ISO400. I will face a problem when under strong sunlight if shooting with f1.2 or f 2.8. The shuttle speed may be over the camera limit of 1/8000. Or the other way round, if I want to pan the moving subject with speed 1/15s, I may hit the lens limit of f22. So I need to set to ISO12.5.
hahaha. who said anything about shooting in film again? hahaha. It’s not a long article to read….. Hahahaha
You can always use a ND (Neutral gray) filter to reduce the amount of light. Even at 100 ISO this can be useful for, say, shooting a waterfall in the sun.
Getting rid of extra light is easy.
Collecting light where there is none is difficult.
But… but… I still like my 40D. Oh yeah, I only use primes too; mostly because I have only one lens and it’s a prime (50mm f/1.8 II). It’s cheaper than dirt but so far it’s turned out to be a better lens than my old 28-35mm f/3.5-5.6. And no, I don’t take happy pills.
so is it a kind of photographic film or is it a kind of imaging sensor? if it is kind of photographic film, digital imaging sensor has nothing to worry about