New technology may be used to detect cancer in the first cells to become malignant
Night vision technology could become extremely precise thanks to an inexpensive water-based material capable of boosting particles of light in the infrared spectrum, say University of Toronto researchers. The material has the potential to enhance infrared images tenfold by coating lenses with a film a 10th of a millimetre thick and powering the material with a laser.
In a study published the January issue of the journal Optics Letters, University of Toronto professors Ted Sargent and Eugenia Kumacheva and colleagues produced optical gain - boosting the power in a beam of light the way a stereo boosts electrical signals - using nanometre-sized particles originally suspended in water. The material can be coated onto computer chips, sprayed onto windows and painted onto flexible fabrics to reveal a new infrared world -- featuring colours with wavelengths longer than the human eye can see.