The hope is that when applied as a thin film on glass that they may provide
a new night vision technology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Strom, Sydney Morning Herald
The crystals act as antennaes that receive a photon emitted in the infrared, combine them with a photon from a laser and then "upconvert" the combined photon to the visible spectrum.
"It's conceivable that this technology will allow us to see colours in the infrared," said lead researcher of the study, Professor Dragomir Neshev.
"Warmer should look bluish and cooler would seem reddish," he said. "But we won't really know until we see it ourselves."
Oh sod that. We'll never get another night's sleep out field if we are able to walk around at night just like it is daytime. It's bad enough with the crappy stuff we have to use now.
Hopefully I will be retired by then...
From an astro pov, it can be quite interesting to turn night vision gear upwards. The resolution isn't good enough to observe much detail on anything, but it does its job and shows far more stars than are visible to the human eye. The jewell box is notable, as are many nebulae and clusters. Without actually checking stars against a chart, I'd say you get down to about Mag 8 when using night vision gear.
Righto - I'll get me a set of these newfangled infrared vision goggles... a couple of extra magnitudes would be nice...even if only to drive onto the observing field without annoying anyone.
ANU nano crystal development may provide new night vision technology
