Looking for rainbows in the moonlight

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Imaging performance is still fundamentally limited by detector technology. For example, mobile camera technology that is based on silicon semiconductor, for all its recent advances in spatial resolution and megapixel counts (the latest being >40 Mpixels by Nokia), still shoots grainy looking video clips at night or in low light level settings. Similarly, industrial machine vision cameras installed on high-speed assembly lines cannot resolve very small or dim objects, limiting manufacturing speed. Moreover, scientists cannot characterize new and existing materials that require the imager to have both, high spatial resolution and high sensitivity (e.g. in fluorescence microscopy or digital pathology). A similar problem occurs in medical imaging with sensitivity and readout speeds being a key limitation for emerging flat panel based tomography systems that are poised to replace traditional 3D imaging modalities. Confounding these technological challenge further are sustainability concerns. For example, many detector technologies rely on materials that face a single supply situation (90% of rare earths are extracted in China today) or toxicity (Cd, Hg and Pb compounds are on the decline in large part due to the recognition by most governments of the considerable harm they can cause to biological organisms). The primary objective of the proposed research program is to develop high performance solid-state detector platform technologies using amorphous semiconductors. Target application areas include consumer electronics (e.g. low light mobile video), scientific imaging (e.g. high sensitivity fluorescence micros-copy and digital pathology), industrial imaging (e.g. high speed machine vision), and medical imaging (flat panel computed tomography, 3D mammography tomosynthesis and positron emission tomography). A primary goal of this research program is to build two compelling technology demonstrator, one for the consumer electronics sector and the other for the medical imaging sector. The first compelling demonstration will be to capture a high-resolution color image of a rainbow in the moonlight using solid-state semiconductor imager technology. The second compelling demonstration will be to image a breast cancer specimen using a small scale 1" prototype of a high-resolution, dual energy, single photon counting X-ray imager. Both consumer electronics and medical imaging sectors represent the best of the high-end manufacturing industry – highly competitive, extremely lucrative and strategically important drivers for new technologies that spawn new industries and substantial growth in existing industries. An inspiring demonstrator is necessary to (1) attract a critical mass of researchers to sustain the new digital imaging platform that is being developed and (2) to encourage local existing or start-up companies to step up and enter a globally competitive industry.