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Sensitive UV Detector Ignores Visible Light

Posted by michael on from the tan-don't-burn dept.

techmaven writes: "Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a new device that detects ultraviolet light and at the same time ignores visible light. The researchers said that the new detector could lead to a UV light detector approximately 10 times more sensitive than those now on the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing astronomers to observe important objects throughout the universe for the first time."

19 comments

  1. Filter. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    A filter. Well done chaps.

    1. Re:Filter. by global_diffusion · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      How is this offtopic? I'd mod it unfair, but then again, I have no mod points...

      waiting for that two minute gap...

  2. man that sucks.... by jeffy124 · · Score: 1

    they just missed their chance to put it on the hubble. the astronauts returned from there just a couple days ago.

    --
    The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
    1. Re:man that sucks.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Earth to clueless, come in clueless. All they've done is developed the detector film. They haven't even built a simple detector much less built one than could be sent up and attached to the Hubble. This is at least two or three years from needing a trip back out there.

    2. Re:man that sucks.... by global_diffusion · · Score: 1

      No problem, we'll just stick it on the NGST. What's that? Budget cuts? Oh. Well then, nevermind.

  3. Almost like /. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So I suppose this is a bit like browsing Slashdot at -1, but yet not being able to see any posts that have been modded up.

    Or have I just been reading too much Slashdot?

  4. revolutionizing voyeurism by vossman77 · · Score: 1

    Could one use this perhaps to peer through the curtains of our neighbors without the distraction of visible light background? It doesn't show its sensitivity curve.

    document on filtering visible light

    1. Re:revolutionizing voyeurism by wsloand · · Score: 1

      Actually, this would not help at all in looking through the neighbor's curtains. You would want lower wavelengths (your link is for infrared-- the opposite direction of UV).

      Check out this link for some more information on the em spectrum.

    2. Re:revolutionizing voyeurism by vossman77 · · Score: 1

      Well, crap I had better return my b.s. in physics and give my students credit on their tests.

      Thanks for catching me on that, it was 6:30 am after a LONG night. I was just trying to put a link with my posts like a good boy. It was hard locating voyeurism technology pages. I bet there could be some good things coming out of UV radiation.

      vossman

  5. That's cute! by Derci · · Score: 1

    Can it be used to "photo" normal things on earth? I wonder how flowers, buildings or humans would look like when viewed using this sensor.

    --

    -- The ballad of arrivederci
    1. Re:That's cute! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now that sounds very much like a "Wow Man" smoked something last night, kind of idea. But all the same, intriguing. Will birds appear with that dusty, dandruffy glow, the way that a jacket shoulders do in a nightclub. (I've taken to wearing white now).

    2. Re:That's cute! by Verne · · Score: 1

      Buildings would look kinda freaky, cause windows block UV light, so they wouldn't be see-through.

      As for everything else, go ask the predator ;)

      --


      There are only two things in this world that smell like fish. And one of them's fish...
  6. Trek IV by chaidawg · · Score: 1

    Where do you keep your Wessels?

  7. Radical improvement- by purduephotog · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In the world of detectors an order of magnitude is about the only thing worth talking about.

    Going from 5% efficiency to anything better than 10% would be an incredible leap. The filters they talk about are 'cutting' filters - you create them by depositing thin films of MgF or other salts on the surface of a piece of optical glass- multiple coats builds up a pass region while allowing destructive interferance to cancle out what you don't want.

    The advantage is these can be turned sideways 45 degrees to 'reflect' the unwanted light to another detector (or in the case of IR, into a heat sink to dump it), but it also distorts the signal. Better to reflect it straight back.

    This also has the advantage of going to fiber as well- encode a UV signal into a fiber optic (assuming your refraction index is high enough) and you can double or triple bandwidth.

    It truly is a very important work - now if they can get it to work at 'space' temperatures and hard vaccuum ;P

  8. Cancer cell detector? by nucal · · Score: 1
    From the article: "It turns out that if you're shining light on something, the light will scatter," said Ulmer. "With cells, the way it scatters depends on whether the cells are large, as in cancer cells, or smaller, as in normal cells."

    I find this a little oversimplified - there are normal skin cells that are 10x larger than cancer cells. Besides, there are more specific high throughput methods for screening cells already in development, such as "gene chip" style arrays that can determine whethercancer related genes are turned on or not.

  9. Nothing new here by adminispheroid · · Score: 1

    At least one thing about this story is full of crap. The article quotes the guy saying "Hubble's UV detectors are not solar-blind" -- this would be false. One of the detectors in the newly installed ACS is called the Solar Blind Channel (SBC). Can you guess why it's called that? In addition, two UV detectors in STIS, which was installed in 1997, are solar-blind.