Triple wavelength superspectral camera focal-plane array (SUPERCAMERA)

光学成像可能是当今使用的最重要的传感器方式。它广泛应用于消费、医疗、商业和国防技术。近20年来最引人注目的发展是采用互补金属氧化物半导体（CMOS）技术的数字成像技术的出现。由于CMOS是可扩展的，相机技术受益于摩尔定律晶体管尺寸的减小，因此现在有可能以50英镑的价格购买超过1000万像素的相机。同样的好处也开始出现在其他成像市场——最明显的是在红外成像领域，64 × 64像素的热像仪售价不到1000英镑。远红外线（FIR）或太赫兹成像现在正在成为生物医学和安全成像应用的重要方式，但早期的成像阵列仍然只是我们目前正在研究的几个像素的研究想法和原型。目前还没有尝试将三种不同波长的传感器同轴地集成到同一芯片上。传感器融合已经很普遍，通过覆盖来自传统可见光和中红外（MIR）传感器的图像数据，以提供更具揭示性和数据丰富的可视化。图像融合允许识别差异并进行比较处理。我们的目标是制造一种“超光谱”成像芯片。我们所说的超光谱是指在广泛不同的波段进行探测，而不是在一个波段内对多个波长进行辨别——例如可见光波段的红、绿、蓝。我们将使用“超越摩尔”微电子技术作为平台。通过这样做，我们将利用广泛可用的低成本CMOS来构建可以在英国开发和利用的具有经济意义的新技术。要使这种技术成为可能，还需要克服相当大的挑战。我们将混合两种半导体系统，集成用于可见光和MIR检测的高效光电二极管传感器。我们将集成红外光谱成像的热测量传感。我们将使用设计和封装技术进行热隔离，并优化每种传感器类型的性能。我们将使用混合超材料和表面等离子体共振技术来优化波长识别，允许物理大型（即FIR）传感器与可见光和MIR传感器垂直堆叠。我们最终想展示世界上第一台超光谱相机。

Optical imaging is perhaps the single most important sensor modality in use today. Its use is widespread in consumer, medical, commercial and defence technologies. The most striking development of the last 20 years has been the emergence of digital imaging using complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology. Because CMOS is scalable, camera technology has benefited from Moore's law reduction in transistor size so that it is now possible to buy cameras with more than 10 MegaPixels for £50. The same benefits are beginning to emerge in other imaging markets - most notably in infrared imaging where 64x64 pixel thermal cameras can be bought for under £1000. Far infrared (FIR), or terahertz, imaging is now emerging as a vital modality with application to biomedical and security imaging, but early imaging arrays are still only few pixel research ideas and prototypes that we are currently investigating. There has been no attempt to integrate the three different wavelength sensors coaxially on to the same chip. Sensor fusion is already widespread whereby image data from traditional visible and mid infrared (MIR) sensors is overlaid to provide a more revealing and data rich visualisation. Image fusion permits discrepancies to be identified and comparative processing to be performed. Our aim is to create a "superspectral" imaging chip. By superspectral we mean detection in widely different bands, as opposed to the discrimination of many wavelengths inside a band - e.g. red, green and blue in the visible band. We will use "More than Moore" microelectronic technology as a platform. By doing so, we will leverage widely available low-cost CMOS to build new and economically significant technologies that can be developed and exploited in the UK. There are considerable challenges to be overcome to make such technology possible. We will hybridise two semiconductor systems to integrate efficient photodiode sensors for visible and MIR detection. We will integrate bolometric sensing for FIR imaging. We will use design and packaging technologies for thermal isolation and to optimise the performance of each sensor type. We will use hybridised metamaterial and surface plasmon resonance technologies to optimise wavelength discrimination allowing vertical stacking of physically large (i.e. FIR) sensors with visible and MIR sensors.We ultimate want to demonstrate the world's first ever super-spectral camera.