OLED Film Could Provide Cheap Night Vision For Cars

thecarchik writes "Night vision systems are already available in the higher-end luxury sedans from companies like Toyota, Volvo, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. It's expensive technology that few drivers can afford, and at $4,000 for the system without a display, it's a pricey upgrade. That may all change soon, as DARPA-funded scientists have developed a cheap way to turn any infrared light into visible light with a thin film."

Comments

Night Vision Systems for Seeing in Darkness

[pitchpipe]

Night vision systems are already available in the higher-end luxury sedans from companies like Toyota, Volvo, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, but it's expensive technology that few drivers can afford, but at $4,000 for the system without a display, it's a pricey upgrade.

Sometimes I will proofread my comments, and sometimes I will read them over again just to make sure there are no mistakes.

Re:Night Vision Systems for Seeing in Darkness

[iamhassi]

"sometimes I will read them over again just to make sure there are no mistakes."

And sometimes I try to get my facts straight, like that Toyota and Volvo does not offer Night Vision at all (only on concepts), and Mercedes and BMW just started offering it in 2006, but Cadillac offered Night Vision 10 years ago on the 2000 DTS :
"on the DTS, and options include a better-than-average navigation system and the "Night Vision" system, which features the first civilian use of infrared thermal-imaging technology to allow the driver to better see pedestrians and animals along the road at night.... A DTS with Night Vision has been my transportation for the past week. It has been an interesting week, with more night driving than usual.... Night Vision really does work."

If the author can't bother to get their facts straight I can't be bothered to read their article. Author completely left out the Cadillac which is plain wrong considering they were one of the first to offer it and it showed up in many popular reviews. Instead, they gave all the credit to German and Asian manufactures for introducing systems either many years later or offering concept cars with night vision

Re:Toyota

[TrisexualPuppy]

Indeed. I looked into purchasing a FLIR camera for my Corvette since deer are a huge problem around here. The funny thing is that it is hard to even find an aftermarket one now, and the few out there were about $8k for 320x240 resolution last time I checked. But will this tech be any cheaper than FLIR? Just throwing out the OLED buzzword doesn't mean much.

And any links to more substantial coverage on this project? The article is just a blurb.

Not only Night Vision

[your_neighbor]

If the OLED is already there, you can use it to display all kind of virtual stuff:
GPS
Ads
Traffic Info
Hookers
Create beautyfull landscapes in polluted areas

Re:Not only Night Vision

[FlyingBishop]

It sounds like this is not an actual display, just a film that translates infrared light into visible light when it is supplied with power.

Re:Liking it, but...

[bugs2squash]

No - instead some idiot will think that it's fine to put ultrabright IR lights spraying light all over the road, because no-one can see it, right ! This system will be ruined by its own widespread adoption.

Journal Article

[JustinOpinion]

For those with access, the media report is based on this paper:
Organic Infrared Upconversion Device, Do Young Kim, Dong Woo Song, Neetu Chopra, Pieter De Somer, Franky So. Advanced Materials 2010, 22, p.1-4. DOI 10.1002/adma.200903312

The abstract is:

Novel infrared-to-visible light upconversion devices are demonstrated by fabricating an organic light-emitting diode with an infrared-sensitizing layer. With a SnPc:C60 mixed layer as an infrared absorber and fac-tris(2-phenylpyridinato) iridium (III) (Irppy3) as an emitter, an infrared-to-green up-conversion device is demonstrated under 830-nm irradiation (see figure, ITO=indium tin oxide). The maximum photon-to-photon conversion efficiency is 2.7% at 15V.

This is good development, to be sure... but I think TFA exaggerates by saying that the device can be so thin that it can be placed on a windshield. In order to be used for something like night-vision, you'll need some kind of lens/optics as well. This material will not maintain the directionality of light as it is converted (from IR to visible), so you can't just "look through" it and see a night-vision version of the world. But you could use a lens to focus an infrared image onto the film, and look at the visible-light emission from the film. Still, this technology should be able to help make night-vision systems smaller and cheaper.

It's also disappointing how media reports of new sci/tech developments insist on focusing on one possible application. It obscures the real potential. For instance, lighter/cheaper IR-to-vis conversion would not just be cool for night driving, but also for emergency workers, home security systems, scientific instruments (the journal article also lists "semiconductor wafer inspection"), optical computing, and so on...

Re:Journal Article

[CrazyColin]

See the reply "No, this won't work." It's akin to a frosted piece of glass or translucent plastic. Light enters the film but directionality is not preserved because OLEDs cannot choose where the light goes, they just emit in all directions at once. Optics is not an easy thing to explain or understand fully, which is why so few people picked up on why this doesn't work. I'll try though. Transparency in optics means that light can get through something without being scattered. That is, emitted photons have non-random directionality based on the incident photons. It's frosting of glass that introduces this random directionality, since all incoming photons are sent out of the glass in random directions. That's the problem with this film. Incoming photons are turned into electrical signals by the IR sensors, then those electrical signals tell the OLEDs to emit photons. The emitted photons are emitted randomly, so the effect is scattering. And scattering in a windshield is a very bad thing if you want to be able to make out objects on the other side.

Re:Glasses

[fifedrum]

x-ray specs! that's what more.

Re:Toyota

[Anonymous Coward]

If you KNOW deer are a problem, then drive more slowly at night during the times of year
when the deer are most mobile. I live a an area with a huge deer population, and this strategy
has saved numerous collisions. What I am talking about is driving the speed limit or slightly
below the speed limit. And BTW, a FLIR system won't help when the deer jumps
out of thick brush directly into the path of your car. Such thick brush would prevent the deer
from being seen even in daylight.

Some problems don't require tech to solve.

Some problems just require common sense.

Re:Toyota

[Amouth]

based on the exceptionally short article - and a random guess ..

i wonder if this isn't done by energizing the OLED array so that when IR hits them they energies (taking from their vacuum tube comment i see this acting like the phosphorus layer on a CRT)

if that is the case.. this is nothing more than a way of receiving IR on one side of the film and illuminating on the other - so more of an IR screen instead of an object detection and alert system

if that is true this would be useful and far cheaper - but given the expectational short story.. i doubt any of us will remember it when the tech hits the market.

also would mean you could blind passing drivers with an IR transmitter.. something only drivers with this screen would see/notice..