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The QWIP Infrared Detector

Posted by michael on from the warmer-warmer...-colder dept.

MagnetarJones writes "This article on space.com reports on a new infrared detector using a chip known as a Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector array (QWIP), capable of resolving images in far infrared wavelengths more than three times better than current detectors. The QWIP uses the semiconductor gallium arsenide, a material with established commercial uses that have led to a simplified, less expensive, manufacturing process. The best detectors in use today -- including other gallium arsenide versions -- have a resolving power of about 300,000 pixels. The new array, a wafer-like chip measuring about 2 centimeters on a side, carries 1 million pixels across its detection surface. Even the pixels themselves are smaller, five of them could fit in the diameter of a human hair, allowing them to detect more light and generate a higher quality image."

14 comments

  1. Width of which human hair? by Gefd · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    It's interesting to see science using the extremely accurate measurement of 'the width of a human hair' to convey the smallness of really-small-stuff. Human hair from where? My pubis is easily twice the thickness, perhaps more, of the hair that grows between the knuckles on my fingers.

    Is there a standard somewhere that I'm unaware of that specifies the default width of a folicle?

    Do I have a point?
    Sadly no. I'll be on my way now.

    1. Re:Width of which human hair? by DASHSL0T · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      How is the parent redundant if he is the only post here?

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    2. Re:Width of which human hair? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Dude...TMI. NEVER talk about your pubes again. I beg you Blah blah blah, lameness filter my ass.

  2. Cool! by Steve+Cox · · Score: 1

    I can now use my TV remote from further away.

    1. Re:Cool! by mstorer3772 · · Score: 1

      Not necessarily, but those 'look thru clothes' camera lenses should start giving better results... ;)

      That actually raises an interesting question: What ARE the uses for this sort of thing? Where is IR imaging used? I can think of cameras of various sorts, and perhaps night-scopes, but there's got to be more stuff out there.

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  3. No Karma for You! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ask a reasonable question, recieve an unreasonable moderation.

    Maybe next time you'll limit yourself to writing things the rest of the herd agrees with.

    1. Re:No Karma for You! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not that I'm a fan of the herd, but it is off topic to whine about moderations, when the topic is QWIP Infrared Detectors. You could be redundant by repeating something in the article (which that post didn't). Personally I thought it was funny, but I never get mod points anymore and wouldn't waste them there anyway.

  4. Correct me if I'm wrong but... by HotNeedleOfInquiry · · Score: 1
    Even the pixels themselves are smaller, five of them could fit in the diameter of a human hair, allowing them to detect more light and generate a higher quality image."

    Wouldn't making the pixels smaller make the device detect less light?

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    1. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong but... by Jammer@CMH · · Score: 1

      It allows you to ensure that a greater fraction of your photodetector surface is actual detectors, and that a smaller percentage of light falls between pixels and is undetected. Perhaps.

    2. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It increases your resolution. Before, you had an area that absorbed X photons. The signal from that detector is the averaged value of all those photons, and the picture shows one square with that value. Now you have 5 detectors in the same space. Now you have 5 seperate squares (pixels) in your picture. You now have 5 times better resolution. Pictures just got 5 times crisper (because every single pixel in the old picture is now made up of 5 pixels).

    3. Re:Correct me if I'm wrong but... by ArsonPerBuilding · · Score: 1

      I could only see this being a problem if the photodector is smalled than the wavelength of the light being detected.

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  5. What are you thinking? by Garridan · · Score: 1

    Don't you know? Humor is not accepted here on Slashdot. Off topic AND redundant. My anus.