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Researchers develop flexible, transparent image sensor

A new image sensor could make transparent user interfaces a reality. The secret lies in a flexible, inexpensive polymer sheet that can capture photos.

Lexy Savvides

The image focused on the flexible sensor, and output as the low-resolution photo.

(Credit: Oliver Bimber, Johannes Kepler University)

Researchers from the Institute of Computer Graphics at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria, have developed a way to capture images on a flexible sheet of plastic. Unlike traditional image sensors that use circuits and other internal structures to develop an image, this new solution is fully transparent.

This is no ordinary sheet of plastic though. The sensor is a polymer film (luminescent concentrator) containing a multitude of fluorescent particles that absorb a specific wavelength of light. It then transmits this light at a longer wavelength to optical sensors at the side of the sheet, which captures it all, reconstructing it as a grayscale image.

Read more of "Researchers develop flexible, transparent image sensor" at CNET Australia.

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