Film pimps lenses with night vision function

Using a heat-sensitive membrane, researchers led by Jeehwan Kim at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have made very lightweight sensors and portable thermal imaging cameras possible. They have succeeded in growing thin skins of pyroelectric material and peeling them off the carrier material. Pyrolitic means that the resulting films generate an electric current even at low temperature changes. In fact, the thinner they are, the more sensitive they prove to be. The recently presented film is just ten nanometers thin and, according to the researchers, reacts more sensitively to radiation in the mid-infrared spectrum than state-of-the-art night vision devices.

A sensor equipped with this film also does not require complex cooling. "This film reduces the weight and manufacturing costs of infrared sensors," writes Xinyuan Zhang on the MIT project page. For example, it could simply be stuck onto a spectacle lens and used to produce thermal imaging glasses. The film could also be used to equip inexpensive sensors that will provide autonomous vehicles with better visibility in fog or darkness in the future.

Kim's group is researching ways to produce electronics in extremely thin and flexible layers. In the future, these fine computer skins could be installed in very different places, be it on contact lenses or in stretchable solar cells and flexible displays. The researchers hope that they will be able to integrate further functions into their thin substrates in the future after the pyroelectric film.

(agr)