Just read about this:

http://optics.org/news/9/4/13

In the piece I read

“According to Gruev, the camera is expected to cost around US$200 (AU$265.80), substantially lower than the currently used FDA-approved imaging devices, which start from around $20,000 (AU$26,580) each.”

I like this idea. I like the simplicity.

buffy said:

Just read about this:

http://optics.org/news/9/4/13

In the piece I read

“According to Gruev, the camera is expected to cost around US$200 (AU$265.80), substantially lower than the currently used FDA-approved imaging devices, which start from around $20,000 (AU$26,580) each.”

I like this idea. I like the simplicity.

Let’s have a look at that article.

> fluorescently labeled cancerous cells”.

Yes, I’ve heard of that.

> The morpho butterfly, whose eyes contain nanostructures that sense multispectral information, can acquire both near-infrared and color information simultaneously”

I’m sure some satellite cameras can do that. “Multispectral imaging measures light in a small number (typically 3 to 15) of spectral bands”. Landsat has imaged up to 11 at once. “A multispectral system usually provides a combination of visible (0.4 to 0.7 µm), near infrared (NIR; 0.7 to 1 µm), short-wave infrared (SWIR; 1 to 1.7 µm), mid-wave infrared (MWIR; 3.5 to 5 µm) or long-wave infrared (LWIR; 8 to 12 µm) bands into a single system”.

But those cameras are expensive.

> The new camera offers very sensitive fluorescence detection even under standard operating room lighting, weighs less than an AA battery, and can be manufactured for around $20.

Excellent.

> On the other hand, because fluorescence is typically dim, it takes longer to collect a sufficient number of photons to build up a sufficiently bright image. By changing the exposure time to allow each pixel to detect the photons it needs, a bright fluorescence image can be created without overexposing the color image of the tissue.

That’s very nice. I want one for a telescope camera, because similarly infrared light from the night sky is typically dim.

> “We showed that under bright surgical lights, our instrument was 1000 times more sensitive to fluorescence than the imagers currently approved for infrared image-guided surgery,”

Incredible.

Need more information. For example, is this an IRGB camera? Or is it simply an infrared camera that projects onto a screen and goggles? Or something else?

What microstructures are required in the imager? How is the pixel brightness turned down? How do they keep the cost down? Is it still in the prototype stage?

buffy said:

Just read about this:

http://optics.org/news/9/4/13

In the piece I read

“According to Gruev, the camera is expected to cost around US$200 (AU$265.80), substantially lower than the currently used FDA-approved imaging devices, which start from around $20,000 (AU$26,580) each.”

I like this idea. I like the simplicity.

https://www.osapublishing.org/optica/fulltext.cfm?uri=optica-5-4-413&id=385333

What does “tapetal” mean?

> These photonic crystals, known as tapetal filters, are realized by stacks of alternating layers of air and cytoplasm. The tapetal spectral filters are constructed using alternating nanometric layers of SiO2 and TiO2, which are pixelated with a 7.8 μm pitch and deposited onto the surface of a custom-designed silicon-based CMOS imaging array. The alternating stack of dielectrics acts as an interference filter, allowing certain light spectra to be transmitted while reflecting others. Full IRGB. A two-by-two pattern of pixels.

> exposure times of 0.1 and 40 ms, respectively. When the animal was imaged with an exposure time of 0.1 ms, the color image was well illuminated, while the NIR image had very low contrast. The animal was then imaged with 40 ms exposure time, resulting in a well-illuminated NIR image but a saturated color image.

OK, so then separated in software.

I like it, very much. An additional use would be night photography of animals, combining rgb and infrared images to get better night images.

> G. Fabrication of Pixelated Spectral Filters

I’ll have to read this later. I’m far from sure how “tapetal” filters manage to let through the correct wavelegth range.

Buffy, would this tapetal filter act like the non-reflective coating on glasses?