Image Sensors at 2022 Photonics Spectra Conference

Photonics Spectra magazine holds is 2022 conference on January 10-13. Registration is free and available here. There are several image sensor presentations at this virtual event:

• KEYNOTE: Quanta Image Sensors: Every Photon Counts, Even in a Smartphone
  Eric Fossum from Dartmouth College talks about the quantum image sensor concept and how it has been implemented in CMOS image sensors and SPADs and what the major differences are between culminating results.
• Emerging Short-Wavelength Infrared Sensors
  Matthew Dyson from IDTechEx Ltd. examines the motivation and applications for SWIR image sensing, and assesses the opportunities, challenges, and adoption roadmap for emerging technical approaches.
• LEDs: Expanding Capabilities for Live Cell Imaging
  Isabel Goodhand from CoolLED explains how innovations such as multi-wavelength switching and TTL triggering enable faster imaging, and how multi-band filters can balance speed and contrast requirements.
• Advanced Detector Solutions Enabling Quantum Optics Research
  Colin Coates from Andor Technology presents high-performance detector solutions that are central to fundamental research on entangled photon systems and ultracold quantum gases.
• How Pixel Size and MTF Affect Modern Microscopy and See the Invisible with Microscopes
  Gerhard Holst from Excelitas PCO GmbH discusses the role of camera pixel size and MTF in the design and application of modern microscopes.
• Enabling Rapid Application Development and Deployment of Hyperspectral Imaging in a Production Environment
  William Rock from Headwall Photonics Inc. presents on the utility of hyperspectral imaging in a production environment using examples in food processing and demonstrates the expedited development cycle using novel hardware and software.
• High-Throughput Hyperspectral Imaging without Image Degradation
  Rand Swanson from Resonon Inc. examines the problem of image degradation with hyperspectral imagers and explores approaches to enhance the signal.
• New Photon-Counting Detectors Expand Frontiers in Scientific Imaging
  Jiaju Ma from Gigajot Technology Inc. explains the fundamentals of photon-counting image sensors, or quanta image sensors, beginning with the background knowledge necessary to effectively apply these devices.
• Dynamic Photodiodes: Unique Light-Sensing Technology with Tunable Sensitivity
  Serguei Okhonin, ActLight SA. Tunable sensitivity sets dynamic photodiode apart from all existing photodiodes, including SPADs. The AI in dynamic photodiode technology is able to dynamically adjust sensitivity at the pixel level to adapt to changing light conditions and keep the high precision of depth measurements. This presentation elaborates on the concept and design of these emerging photodiodes and how they are set to impact today’s sensing applications.
• Current and Future Detector Designs for Flash Lidar
  Jennifer Ruskowski, Fraunhofer IMS. The roadmap for creating lidar sensors for autonomous cars and robots is moving into a new era. Becoming ever more important are technologies such as sensor fusion and embedded AI, which are poised to enhance the performance, efficiency, and acceptance of lidar sensors. Additionally, on a hardware level, lidar components such as laser sources and detectors are becoming increasingly powerful. Jennifer Ruskowski gives a brief overview of the Fraunhofer IMS’s lidar development activities, from light detector to system design to sensor fusion and embedded AI solutions.
• FMCW and TOF Flash Automotive Lidar: Challenges and Prospects
  Slawomir Piatek, New Jersey Institute of Technology & Hamamatsu Corp. A vision of self-driving cars propels research and development for automotive lidar, vital hardware providing distance and velocity information about car surroundings. Among several lidar concepts—with some already adopted and heading toward production for automotive advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and industrial markets—two newer designs have emerged with the highest potential in the future: frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar and time-of-flight (ToF) flash lidar. Both concepts, however, face engineering challenges impeding full adaptation. This presentation reviews operation principles of each technique and then discusses in greater detail the unique challenges each one faces. In particular, a light source with a long and stable coherence length is the primary challenge of FMCW lidar, whereas a photodetector with high photosensitivity and low noise is the challenge for ToF-flash lidar. The presentation concludes with a review of possible solutions to the aforementioned obstacles.