Lead Inventor:
Ioannis Kymissis Ph.D.
Infrared Sensors with Optical and Acoustic Detection Capabilities Needed:
Optical sensors have become extremely sophisticated and high resolution, employed in everything from cell phones to military surveillance equipment. Making sense of optical data however requires sophisticated electronics and image processing to discern objects of interest, such as people. Use of non-optical detectors such as infrared (IR) offer greater ease of detection and imaging in conditions where optical wavelengths are obscured. IR detectors are already widely used in home security systems as motion detectors, but are rather crude, and low resolution, often triggered by household pets. There is a need for acoustic, or IR based detectors offering the sophistication and resolution of conventional camera sensors capable of detecting non-visible wavelength signals.
Optical and Acoustic Sensor for Security, Defense:
The technology is an organic based sensor array that uses PVDF, a flexible polymer which is both piezoelectric and pyroelectric, meaning an electrical signal is generated in response to either pressure or heat. The PVDF can transduce both acoustic and IR signals into an electrical signal. PVDF can be additionally coupled with a susceptor which absorbs terahertz (THz) radiation and reradiates in the IR to make the device sensitive in the THz range. Thanks to its piezoelectric properties the device can be utilized as an acoustic detector. By combining the PVDF with an active matrix array of organic field effect transistors a large area flexible detector with high spatial resolution is achieved, sensitive to both acoustic and THz signals.
Applications:
• As an inexpensive, high resolution Terahertz and acoustic sensor array for use in security, chemical detection, or defense applications
• As a steerable phased array microphone capable not only of detecting but pinpointing the source location
Advantages:
• Typical devices utilize silicon (Si) based electronics. Si acts as a heat spreader blurring resolution. This device being entirely organic and less heat conductive high spatial resolution is preserved.
• The organic materials are inexpensive, and easy to pattern, making it cost effective from both a raw materials and fabrication stand point.
• Since it's organic based much larger areas are achievable than with traditional Si based sensors, and the detector is conformable to curved surfaces enabling new sensor geometries.
• As an arrayed acoustic sensor it can locate signal sources and as a THz sensor it can image through conditions opaque to visible and even IR radiation.
Patent Information:
Patent Issued
Licensing Status: Available for Licensing and Sponsored Research Support