Accident Could Lead To Better Digital Cameras 120
Dave Bullock (eecue) writes "Scientists at UCLA have accidentally created a material that will some day give us better, faster, cheaper, more flexible digital cameras. I toured their lab and shot a photo essay for Wired. Personally I'm looking forward to a quantum-dot embedded camera sensor someday soon. 'Graduate student Hsiang-Yu Chen was working on a new formula for solar cells when something went wrong. Instead of creating electricity when hit with light, the conductivity of the material she was working with changed. "The original purpose [was] to make a solar cell more efficient," says Chen. "However, during the research we found the solar cell phenomenon [had] disappeared." Instead, the test material showed high gain photoconductivity, indicating potential use as a photo sensor.'"
Re:That's great... (Score:5, Informative)
Or, to quote Asimov:
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new ...'
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny
Re:No, you won't see it any day soon... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No, you won't see it any day soon... (Score:3, Informative)
I think he means 3CCD dedicated still camera, not a 3CCD video camera that can do stills.
Re:Whoa There Chen (Score:4, Informative)
Not so fast. (Score:3, Informative)
Not at all - 22mpix is about film resolution, which is just becoming widespread with the 5Dmk2 and D3X. Long way to go before that's on my phone. Similarly there's a long way to go with ISO. The 5Dmk2 has 25000 iso, but its still not perfect. Lots of room for improvement there and that's just two areas.
Re:Whoa There Chen (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No, you won't see it any day soon... (Score:1, Informative)
Ahhh. Well, if he wants to pay for it, it's technically feasible. Thing is, sensors are very expensive, the most expensive part of the camera. Add to that additional expense of the prism filtering, and there you have it. The 3CCD's are on video cameras because they're much lower resolution, cheaper sensors.
Go ahead and bitch, but 3CCD's are here. Just because they cost a lot doesn't mean that the tech isn't here. Hell... this development could even make 3CCD cameras more affordable to make.
Re:and these exciting science news ... (Score:3, Informative)