Impressive New Night Vision Technology from UCLA

I came across this article and thought I'd pass it along. I think it's pretty fascinating how they are using the graphene:

"The new photodetector takes advantage of the unique properties of graphene, a super-thin material made up of a single layer of carbon atoms. Graphene is an excellent material for detecting photons because it can absorb energy from a broad swath of the electromagnetic spectrum — from ultraviolet light to visible light to the infrared and microwave bands. Graphene is also a very good conductor of electrical current — electrons can flow through it unimpeded.

To form the photodetector, the researchers laid strips of graphene over a silicon dioxide layer, which itself covers a base of silicon. Then, they created a series of comb-like nanoscale patterns, made of gold, with “teeth” about 100 nanometers wide. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.)

The graphene acts as a net to catch incoming photons and then convert them into an electrical signal. The gold comb-shaped nanopatterns quickly transfer that information into a processor, which in turn produces a corresponding high-quality image, even under low-light conditions.

“We specifically designed the dimensions of the graphene nanostripes and their metal patches such that incoming visible and infrared light is tightly confined inside them,” said Semih Cakmakyapan, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar and the lead author of the study. “This design efficiently produces an electrical signal that follows ultrafast and subtle variations in the light’s intensity over the entire spectral range, from visible to infrared.”"

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/photodetector-improve-night-vision-thermal-sensing-medical-imaging