Leland Stanford Junior University

Avago Technologies General IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Peter B Catrysse

Yi Cui

Shanhui Fan

Brian A Wandell

John Stewart Wenstrand

Jeffrey M Dicarlo

Po-Chun Hsu

Hocheol Shin

Yucan Peng

Feng Xiao

Nathan Zhao

Alex Yu Song

The present disclosure is directed toward systems for providing color-selective light detection and/or image sensing in a substantially lossless manner, thereby providing higher and up to nearly perfect optical efficiency. Embodiments disclosed herein include a plurality of pixel-repeat units, each including a color router that is configured to selectively route photons of each wavelength signal in a light signal to a different photodetector of the pixel-repeat unit. In some embodiments, the color router also functions as an anti-reflection coating that mitigates reflection of incident light, as well as a lensing system that directs substantially all photons of each wavelength signal only to their corresponding photodetector. As a result, the photodetectors collect more light than possible using prior-art absorptive color filters, thereby enabling smaller photodetectors to be used. Therefore, scaling of image sensor photodetectors to sub-wavelength sizes is possible.

Color-routers for image sensing

An integrated waveguide including a dielectric structure configured to receive a first electromagnetic field distribution via a first major surface and having a second major surface, wherein the first electromagnetic field distribution produces a second electromagnetic field distribution within the dielectric structure. The waveguide further includes at least one metallic element disposed in the dielectric structure between the first major surface and the second major surface, the at least one metallic element structured and positioned to effect the second electromagnetic field distribution to increase an amount of the second electromagnetic field distribution that is incident upon a selected region of the second major surface.

Integrated waveguide and method for designing integrated waveguide

Using a realistic plasmonic model, an optically thick electrically conductive film with subwavelength hole or holes therein is shown to always support propagating modes near the surface plasmon frequency, where cross-sectional dimensions of the hole or holes are less than about &#x3bb;/2n, &#x3bb; being the wavelength of the light and nthe refractive index of the dielectric material in the hole or holes. This is the case even when material losses are taken into account. Based on the dispersion analysis, in both a single hole or hole array designs, propagating modes play a dominant role in the transport properties of incident light. These structures exhibit a new region of operation, while featuring a high packing density and diffraction-less behavior. These structures can be used in near-field scanning optical microscopy, in collection and emission modes, for writing data to an optical storage device, as wavelength-selective optical filters, for multispectral imaging of a sample, as photolithography masks for transferring an image to a photoresist-coated substrate, as light emitters, light collectors and light modulators.

Effect of the plasmonic dispersion relation on the transmission properties of subwavelength holes

An integrated color pixel (ICP) with at least one integrated metal filter is presented. Rather than utilizing a separate color filter, the wavelength responsivity of the ICP is specified and integrated at pixel level into the ICP itself using metal materials already available for standard integrated circuit design and fabrication process. The ICP of the present invention is thus distinguished from a conventional color pixel constructed in a two-stage process that combines an image sensor with a color filter array or other optical material.

Integrated color pixel (ICP)

Color balancing algorithms for digital image processing require an accurate estimate of the physical properties of the ambient scene illuminant, particularly its spectral power distribution. An active imaging method and apparatus estimate these properties by emitting modulated light with a known spectral power distribution into a region of a scene. Backscattered light is detected and demodulated to separate output representing active emitter light from output representing ambient illuminant light. Using the emitter-related detector output and the known emitter spectral power distribution, the surface spectral reflectance function of the illuminated scene region can be computed. Subsequently, the spectral power distribution of the ambient scene illuminant can be computed from the surface reflectance function and the illuminant-related output of the detector. The estimated spectral power distribution can be used in standard color balancing algorithms for digital or film images.

Growing community of inventors

Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Peter B Catrysse