Desert ant shows Chinese team the way to hi-def polarised light sensor chip
Thin, crystalline films inspired by polarisation vision of desert ants helps team to beat bulkiness challenge, Science Advances paper says
The chip could have a wide range of uses including in navigation, fingerprint detection, and even identifying cancerous tissue, the team said.
Polarisation photodetectors (pol-PDs) are special light sensors that can sense the direction of polarised light. By identifying differences in incoming light, these photodetectors can distinguish contrast and improve image quality.
Such photodetectors have widespread applications in areas including “geological remote sensing, machine vision [and] biological medicine”, the team wrote in a paper published in peer-reviewed journal Science Advances on December 4.
But commercial polarised photodetectors are hard to miniaturise because the optical systems and parts are complex, according to the team.
Working alongside researchers from Beihang University and Imperial College London, a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences led by bio-inspired materials expert Li Mingzhu, turned to the eyes of desert ants to inspire a simpler design.
While our eyes consist of a single eye unit, compound eyes found in insects and crustaceans are made up of many small units containing photoreceptor cells.
