Miniature infrared camera enters commercial market.Advances in miniaturized electronics are helping improve the performance of uncooled infrared cameras--used for monitoring overheating Overheating An economy that is growing very quickly, with the risk of high inflation. in equipment and manufacturing processes, security and surveillance night-vision equipment. A new detector engine based on MEMS (MicroElectroMechanical Systems) Tiny mechanical devices that are built onto semiconductor chips and are measured in micrometers. In the research labs since the 1980s, MEMS devices began to materialize as commercial products in the mid-1990s. (micro-electro-mechanical systems Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) Systems that couple micromechanisms with microelectronics. Such systems are also referred to as microsystems, and the coupling of micromechanisms with microelectronics is also termed micromechatronics. ) technology captures images with heat-sensitive microscopic cantilever dements machined into its surface, one for each pixel. As the elements bend in response to the heat invisible infrared light Noun 1. infrared light - electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths longer than visible light but shorter than radio waves infrared emission, infrared radiation, infrared , they generate electrical signals to create a thermal image of objects in a scene. This IR detector engine demonstrates that it's possible to fabricate MEMS-based IR imagers at 320 x 240 pixels, the benchmark resolution for most commercial applications, according to the manufacturers, Microsystems of Knoxville, and Sarnoff Corporation, of Princeton, N.J. |
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