* Researchers closing in on developing a digital eye news

Researchers closing in on developing a digital eye news
From: http://www.electronics-in-china.com/buy-camera/
Key words: camera, digital,electronics
Researchers at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University have developed a high-performance eye-shaped camera using standard sensor materials, which they say, would help improve the performance of digital cameras and enhance imaging of the human body. The devise could also lead to the development of prosthetic devices including a bionic eye.
With funding from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Energy, John Rogers, the Flory-Founder chair professor of materials science and engineering at Illinois, and Yonggang Huang of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, demonstrated a digital camera on a curved surface that has the size, shape and layout of a human eye.
The work opens new possibilities for advanced camera design. It also foreshadows artificial retinas for bionic eyes similar in concept to those in the movie ''Terminator'' and other popular science fiction.
The researchers say the curved shape vastly improved the field of vision, bringing the whole picture into focus. The device could be used to make better imaging equipment, such as curved sensors to monitor brain activity that follow the contours of the brain. It could even be used in the development of an artificial retina or a bionic eye, which future research could enable being connected to the brain.
The camera has been made using an array of single-crystalline silicon detectors and electronics, configured in a stretchable, interconnected mesh.

''Conformally wrapping surfaces with stretchable sheets of optoelectronics provides a practical route for integrating well-developed planar device technologies onto complex curvilinear objects,'' said Rogers.
From: http://www.electronics-in-china.com/buy-camera/