Black Silicon Used For Surveillance?

An anonymous reader writes "For the past decade, 'black silicon' has been touted as a way to make super-sensitive image sensors and ultra-efficient solar cells. That's because the material — silicon wafers treated with sulfur gases and femtosecond laser pulses — is much better at absorbing photons and releasing electrons than conventional silicon, at least over certain wavelengths. In 2008, Harvard spinoff SiOnyx went public with its plans to commercialize black silicon. But what happened to those plans? Today SiOnyx revealed in another exclusive that it has raised new venture financing from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and other big investors. It also has formed a key strategic partnership to scale up manufacturing of black silicon — and go after markets in security, surveillance, automotive, consumer devices, and medical imaging."

Comments

Not having RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

But having some years as lab physicist, could someone add if the S is SF6, and at what lambda? At what W over what area?

Nightvision?

[Fibe-Piper]

The article states the this allows people to see where they have previously been blind. Obviously the speaker means that people cannot see in the dark and this gives them this ability. I wonder how this compares to standard night vision technology which sounds like it does the same or similar thing.

Any questions?

[sevenofdiamonds]

I'm getting my Ph.D researching black silicon. If you have science or engineering questions about it, post them in reply to this comment. I'll check back at around 3 PM EST and will do my best to answer the questions I find then.

Re:Any questions?

[vbraga]

The summary defines black silicon as:

silicon wafers treated with sulfur gases and femtosecond laser pulses

Is this a thin film deposition (pulsed laser?)? Can you give a more accurate description? Maybe pointers to interesting papers?

Thank you!

Re:Any questions?

[DrWho520]

- Other posters have noted/claimed this is a result of high manufacturing costs making this material prohibitive for solar cell production. Could the manufacturing costs of this material be brought down to a point as to make it a good substance for solar cells? How close are we?
- What wavelengths does this material respond too/detect? Could it be modified/designed to image UV/Vis/IR?
- How linear is the response function, or perhaps would it require an exotic calibration procedure to translate photons into radiance?

Thank you for volunteering to answer questions and good luck in your academic endeavors! I wish I was in graduate school now and was positioned to work in this domain.