Many of the issues we face have already been dealt with in existing technology, its just amatter of time befoire they can deliver these types of chips in commercial quantities at a price point that mere mortals can afford.
Back illuminated chilled sensors can provide high Qe with low noise - they just cost more at present.
Although I suspect that many of the near future advances are going to come along by way of using existing technology - smart ideas using existing technology to push the frontiers.
I hope Black Silicon can bring the promises they make to fruition - Qe- 10,000%, spectral sensitivities from 400 to 1500nm (even 2500nm is being stated)
http://www.sionyxinc.com
They make some extraordinary claims that appear to be well backed up by Harvard Research and they are being well funded.
This recent multi CCD imaging system patent by Olympus may be of interest ?
http://www.google.com/patents?id=dwS...age&q=&f=false
It uses a gapless multiprism design to separate the various light channels into three channels - one for each of three CCDs
It appears that the amount of light being reflected and transmitted at each layer is close to 100% hence almost no losses.
This would mean no antialiasing filters, no bayer filters or debayering algorithms and a vastly improved imaging system to current RGB techniques for Astro - just swing that out of the way for narrow band !
As for having telescopes which have flat fields across these larger image planes - many already exist now, although most are higher end scopes, they are not out of the reach of amateurs.
Its really a matter of supply and demand - as soon as the demand arrives the supply willl catch up.
It will all happen at its own pace and we will all yearn for something even better when it arrives, when in fact most of us are not yet capable of maximising our use with the current technology devices !