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…
  • Destide@feddit.ukEnglish
    201·
    4 months ago

    “From evening drives” Bad enough dealing with modern headlights with normal eyes

    • Farid@startrek.websiteEnglish
      81·
      4 months ago

      Do modern headlights emit IR? I don’t think so. Which means these IR amplifiers wouldn’t change the intensity of headlights.

        • Farid@startrek.websiteEnglish
          7·
          4 months ago

          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.

          • notabot@lemm.eeEnglish
            2·
            4 months ago

            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?

            • Farid@startrek.websiteEnglish
              2·
              4 months ago

              If I understood correctly, it captures visible light to use it for the amplification of the IR spectrum.

              • notabot@lemm.eeEnglish
                2·
                4 months ago

                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!