Bio-Inspired IR Imager

The proposal addresses a new class of IR detector that mimics the snake's thermal sensing ability. The design is based on the extensive research derived findings on biological IR sensing systems and leverages recent material process progress in multi-layered nano-scale membrane preparation. The revolutionary polymer bubble array IR imager offers significant improvements in IR imager performance and manufacturing cost over competing technologies. The innovation is based on a highly sensitive Golay cell array made of unique compliant and extremely robust free standing nanomembrane bubbles. Despite its technical novelty, the proposed device is extremely simple to produce with inherent high manufacturing yield at dramatically reduced cost. The device is anticipated to have high IR sensitivity as well as high resolution of mega-pixel array size. The new imager employs a novel optical direct readout, providing a practical system solution to lightweight, low-cost, environmentally friendly military and commercial applications. Due to its fundamentally passive nature, our camera also consumes little power and offers near real time response due to the elimination of electronic scanning associated with conventional IR cameras.