In what could be a termed a quantum leap in terms of digital photography, physicists at the Harvard University have discovered something known as Black Silicon which according to them will change the digital photography, solar power and night vision industries for ever.
The new material was accidentally discovered when one researcher tensed up after concerns regarding the funding of a project loomed large and decided to write a new direction to the research proposal without actually thinking much about it. The Physicist Eric Mazur had actually directed the researchers to shine a powerful laser on to a silicon wafer. To intensify the effect of the beam, a coat of sulphur hexafluoride was applied to the wafer. Sulphur hexafluoride is incidentally used within the semiconductor industry as an etching agent in silicon circuitry. The laser, who’s output matches all the energy that the sun produces at a given moment in time made the silicon wafer turn “black” resulting in the what we now know as “black silicon”.
When observed under an electron microscope, the cause of this “blackness” were millions of spikes which were formed due to the effect of the laser. These spikes had a major effect on the light sensitivity of the wafer. The wafer was now 100 to 500 times more sensitive to light than “normal” silicon. The material now possessed the capacity to absorb about twice as much as visible light absorbed by standard silicon sensors as well as the ability to detect infrared light which has been so far invisible to the current generation of silicon based detectors.
With little change in the manufacturing process in producing “black silicon”, this is one accidental discovery that is set to make a big splash! Fore more on this head to nytimes.com
Via: Gizmodo
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