OLED Film Could Provide Cheap Night Vision For Cars

thecarchik writes "Night vision systems are already available in the higher-end luxury sedans from companies like Toyota, Volvo, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. It's expensive technology that few drivers can afford, and at $4,000 for the system without a display, it's a pricey upgrade. That may all change soon, as DARPA-funded scientists have developed a cheap way to turn any infrared light into visible light with a thin film."

Re:Glasses

[fifedrum]

x-ray specs! that's what more.

Re:Toyota

[Anonymous Coward]

If you KNOW deer are a problem, then drive more slowly at night during the times of year
when the deer are most mobile. I live a an area with a huge deer population, and this strategy
has saved numerous collisions. What I am talking about is driving the speed limit or slightly
below the speed limit. And BTW, a FLIR system won't help when the deer jumps
out of thick brush directly into the path of your car. Such thick brush would prevent the deer
from being seen even in daylight.

Some problems don't require tech to solve.

Some problems just require common sense.

Re:Journal Article

[CrazyColin]

See the reply "No, this won't work." It's akin to a frosted piece of glass or translucent plastic. Light enters the film but directionality is not preserved because OLEDs cannot choose where the light goes, they just emit in all directions at once. Optics is not an easy thing to explain or understand fully, which is why so few people picked up on why this doesn't work. I'll try though. Transparency in optics means that light can get through something without being scattered. That is, emitted photons have non-random directionality based on the incident photons. It's frosting of glass that introduces this random directionality, since all incoming photons are sent out of the glass in random directions. That's the problem with this film. Incoming photons are turned into electrical signals by the IR sensors, then those electrical signals tell the OLEDs to emit photons. The emitted photons are emitted randomly, so the effect is scattering. And scattering in a windshield is a very bad thing if you want to be able to make out objects on the other side.