Night-vision lenses so thin and light that we can all see in the dark
Night-vision lenses so thin and light that we can all see in the dark
From evening drives to navigating a house or a park in the dark, there are so many situations where it'd be handy to slip on a simple pair of night-vision lenses and the world that's beyond human optical perception could be illuminated like never before. This vision could be a reality, with a…
You're viewing a single thread.
"From evening drives" Bad enough dealing with modern headlights with normal eyes
Do modern headlights emit IR? I don't think so. Which means these IR amplifiers wouldn't change the intensity of headlights.
IR is heat, so headlights produce a a lot of IR. Laser headlights emit less IR with the visible light, but radiate heat.
Well, IR isn't heat, but it's associated with it. And since laser and LED lights heat up a little bit, yes, they of course produce a miniscule amount of IR. But it's pretty much negligible in comparison to their visible spectrum emissions. If you're already being blinded by the visible range of the laser, the IR part isn't gonna do much.
You asked if headlights emit IR because you didn't think they do, they emit IR.
Fair enough, I was being too vague with my statement. I was implying that they don't emit much IR, as all bodies above 0 Kelvin do emit it. And LED/laser headlights almost don't, in comparison to xenon and stuff. I looked up some Xe emission graphs and some even straight up show the peak in near-IR, while laser/LED starts flatting out way before NIR.
Touché
Now that I've read my own comment, I see that it came off harsher then I intended it to. Interpret it literally and not like a sarcastic statement.
Btw, just occurred to me that these would probably not work in a car at all, because regular glass is usually opaque to IR.
The material captures visible light too, so headlights would be brighter, but I wonder if there's a way to reduce the contrast by either filtering out some wavelengths (like driving glasses) or the material simply not boosting it's output past a certain level?
If I understood correctly, it captures visible light to use it for the amplification of the IR spectrum.
The article says:
The photons travel through a resonant metasurface, where they mingle with a pump beam.
From that, I think it's suggesting it needs a separate beam of photons to amplify the signal, much like a transistor needs a supply current to amplify the signal it gets.
They also say:
This new tech also captures the visible and non-visible (or infrared) light in one image as you look through the 'lens.'
Which sounds like it produces an image showing both the IR and visible spectrum in the visible range.
Mind you, re-readind it, most of the article just talks about IR, so I'm not certain what it's actually doing. It could just be transparent to the visible spectrum. It wouldn't be much good for driving if it did that though, the windscreen blocks a lot of IR and you'd need IR headlights!
Yeah, it's absolutely clear that nothing is clear about its operation.