The broader impacts/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be widespread use of Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) imaging technology in a variety of industries. New Ge-based SWIR imaging sensor technology enables infrared imaging to move beyond niche industrial and scientific applications and enter mainstream commercial markets. The Ge-based SWIR sensors proposed here are low-power, high-resolution and dramatically lower cost. When incorporated into handheld devices, such as smartphones, SWIR image sensors may allow non-invasive, real-time biological monitoring. For example, they may enable diabetic patients bloodless glucose monitoring. Furthermore, these SWIR Image sensors can be utilized in diverse fields, including automotive safety and food safety inspection.
This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project seeks to develop high-resolution Ge (Germanium) based Short Wavelength Infrared (SWIR) image sensors. SWIR lights (800 nm to 1.8 µm) are invisible to the human eye, but they can provide invaluable information. Image sensors that detect SWIR lights enable night vision and sub-surface views of a variety of products and materials. However, current SWIR image sensors are made of a material called InGaAs, which is costly to create and has limitations in terms of resolution and power usage. To overcome these problems and bring the benefits of SWIR image sensors into our daily lives, a new method for producing SWIR image sensors has been invented. Improving the resolution of Ge-based SWIR image sensors to VGA (640x512) resolution while maintaining low noise level will dramatically advance SWIR imaging technology.
This NSF SBIR Phase I project aimed to develop Germanium-based Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) image sensors. Like visible light, SWIR light is highly sensitive and reflective, providing strong contrast in images. However, contrary to visible light, SWIR light bounces off night sky radiance, meaning that high definition images can be obtained even at night. Also, due to the fact that SWIR penetrates objects, images below the surface are visible using SWIR lights. These qualities mean that SWIR sensing technology is useful for a variety of applications, including night vision systems, automotive vision systems, medical imaging equipment, and food quality inspection systems. Until now, use of SWIR technology has been limited due to the high cost and large size of SWIR imaging systems. This means that SWIR technology has only been accessible to the military and large corporations. Stratio's Germanium-based sensor design allows it to produce high quality SWIR image sensors that are both low-cost and portably sized, which will make SWIR technology more widely available than ever before. We also aim to make SWIR technology directly accessible to consumers for the first time ever, whether through a smart phone gadget with night vision and anti-fog vision capabilities, a personal hyper-spectral food analysis device, or through mobile health monitoring devices that track vital statistics like blood oxygenation. Our sensor can also improve existing technologies that ensure public well-being, like search and rescue equipment, medical imaging equipment, and security cameras. Our sensor’s affordability and applicability to a wide variety of fields ensures that everyone will have the opportunity to benefit from our technology. In this Phase I project we successfully built and demonstrated our 16x16 pixel SWIR camera, proving the viability of our technology. This award also supported the design process for the next version of our sensor, an 80x60 pixel SWIR camera suitable for consumer use.
