73443 RESEARCHERS at the University of Granada and the Polytechnic University of Milan have designed a multispectral imaging system with 12 times the colour channels of conventional colour image sensors.
The new imaging system obtains information from a total of 36 colour channels in real time. Current colour image sensors, and the human eye, have 3 colour channels only.
Potential applications include new assisted vehicle driving systems, counterfeit bills identification systems, and enhanced medical imaging capabilities.
Colour image sensors have an architecture that consists of a monochrome sensor (in black and white), covered with a layer of colour filters (commonly, red, green and blue, also known as RGB).
These sensors only extract information from one of three colours for each pixel within the image. The rest of the colours in that pixel are derived using algorithms.
The new sensors developed by the researchers are called Transverse Field Detectors (TFD) and they are capable of extracting the full colour information from each pixel in the image without the need for a layer of colour filter on them.
TFDs work because each photon penetrates at a different depth depending on its wavelength (which is tied to its colour). By collecting these photons at different depths on the silice surface of the sensor, the different channels of colour can be separated without using filters.
By applying a transversal electric field of varying and controlled intensity, to the TDF, researchers found they could modulate the depth at which the photons in each colour channel are collected. This could eventually result in the ability to fine-tune the way these sensors turn the light they receive into electric signals.
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