Illinois researchers have developed an ultra-sensitive camera that mimics the eye of the mantis shrimp. This camera is capable of sensing both color and polarization. The camera can likely improve early cancer detection. It can also help provide a new understanding of underwater phenomena.
Viktor Gruev, a University of Illinois professor of electrical a d computer engineering and co-author of the new study says, "These animals perceive natural phenomena that are invisible to humans." The mantis shrimp is considered one of the best shallow water hunters, they possess one of the most sophisticated eyes in nature. Humans have only three different types of color receptors while the mantis shrimp has 16 different types along with six polarization channels. Polarization of light is the direction of oscillation of light as it propagates in space. The eyes of the mantis shrimp have photosensitive elements that are vertically stacked on top of each other. This allows them to absorb shorter wavelengths, including blue light in the shallow photoreceptors and red light in the deeper receptors. They are organized in a fashion at the nanoscale that allows them to also "see" the polarized properties of light. The same laws of physics that apply to the shrimps vision can also be applied to silicon materials. This was the material used to build the digital cameras. The scientists stacked multiple photodiodes on top of each other using the silicon. When they combined this technology with metallic nanowires, they "effectively replicated the portion of the mantis shrimp visual system that allows it to sense both color and polarization." Using this combination, the research team was able to create a point-and-shoot color-polarization camera. "The applications for such cameras are wide-ranging, from early cancer detection to monitoring changes in the environment to decoding the covert communication channels that many underwater creatures appear to exploit," said the researchers.
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