Night-vision lenses so thin and light that we can all see in the dark
Night-vision lenses so thin and light that we can all see in the dark
From evening drives to navigating a house or a park in the dark, there are so many situations where it'd be handy to slip on a simple pair of night-vision lenses and the world that's beyond human optical perception could be illuminated like never before. This vision could be a reality, with a…
Instead, TMOS researchers used metasurface-based upconversion technology, which essentially provides an easier pathway for light photons to be processed. The photons travel through a resonant metasurface, where they mingle with a pump beam. The non-local lithium niobate metasurface boosts the energy of the photons, and draws them into the visible light spectrum without the need to convert them to electrons first. It also doesn't require cryogenic cooling – which reduces 'noise' for sharper images in traditional night vision – so can do away with even more of the bulky night-vision goggle mechanics.
This reads like a Turbo Encabulator script.
The only quirky word in there is metasurface
Depends on your scientific familiarity. Also, part of the turbo encabulator script is that most of the words are not odd, it's how they're joined which is odd.
"From evening drives" Bad enough dealing with modern headlights with normal eyes
This isn't really night vision in the typical sense. It's an Infrared camera in a thin package.
Also Military night vision is described wrong. The photon doubled is quite small. The problem is that afterwards the image needs to be turned again. That is done with fiberoptics. Those take the amount of space.
“This is the first demonstration of high resolution up-conversion imaging from 1550-nm infrared to visible 550-nm light in a non-local metasurface," said author Rocio Camacho Morales. "We choose these wavelengths because 1,550 nm, an infrared light, is commonly used for telecommunications, and 550 nm is visible light to which human eyes are highly sensitive. Future research will include expanding the range of wavelengths the device is sensitive to, aiming to obtain broadband IR imaging, as well as exploring image processing, including edge detection.”
That does not sound like an Infrared camera.
You're right, there is no capture or recording of light in this system. Electromagnetic metasurfaces directly alter the waveform of photons as they pass through. In this instance it directly converts infrared light into visible 550nm (green) light.
It doesn't immediately sound like it, but having read all that it does sound like it's what it is even if they dressed it up a bunch. What parts make you think differently?
Surly there is a lenses that flips images upside down. Have we tried just training people to deal with upside down surly it doesnt take too long for the brain to adapt.
The device captures visible and infrared light, just like a typical night vision scope. They're working on expanding the spectrum too, which could lead to some interesting and useful results. I understand that, for instance, skin cancers are more visible under certain UV wavelengths, so imagine a doctor being able to just put on a pair of glasses that convert that wavelength to give you a once over during a checkup.
Can't wait to add this to my transitions blue light filter colour blind prescription smart glasses.
First: I'll believe it when I see it. Every so often pie-in-the-sky claims of this type come out, and they often end up not being feasible, even if they're technically possible.
Second: if it is feasible, given that gen 3 night vision tubes have remained stubbornly expensive, I would not expect this to be cheap for a long time.
Who knows. Some tech is both better functionally and cheaper. We'll see. No need to hype anyway.
iirc the way night vision currently works the actual amplifying part is incredibly thin and more than 90% of the thickness is post amplification cleanup.
I'm pretty sure you're correct, although I believe that the part that's capturing photons also needs to be heavily protected from the environment, and you also need something to prevent to many photons from getting to it and burning it out (e.g., almost all gen 3 NODs are autogated so that someone shining a flashlight at you won't wreck your image intensifier tubes.)
It's one of those things that can get pretty overwhelming to try and research as a consumer, because it gets really technical really fast.
I don't have much to contribute to the technical discussion here, just my comment that even playing with kids toy night vision goggles is awesome. For about $100 you can buy a really fun toy to play around with. Gets boring quickly, but kids might have fun with it longer.