High-sensitivity color image sensor with full-color-sorting metalenses

抄録

Image sensors are the eyes of machines and the primary components in cutting-edge technologies such as smartphones and self-driving cars. These technologies require high-sensitivity sensors capable of high-speed or dark-scene imaging. However, in conventional color-image sensors, the total amount of light received is inherently limited because the light-absorptive color filters are integrated on all pixels, which hinders improvement to sensitivity. Hence, we develop light-transmissive metalenses that can separate and focus primary colors on high-density pixels and propose a filter-free sensor architecture to utilize them. This paper introduces such full-color-sorting metalenses and discusses their effect on image-sensor sensitivity.