University of Cambridge scientists, in conjunction with tech industry experts, have developed a novel graphene-based infrared (IR) detector with record high sensitivity for thermal detection. The technology paves the way for high-performance IR imaging and spectroscopy.

The work was undertaken as part of a collaboration within the Graphene Flagship – the European research consortium aiming to bring graphene technologies to commercial markets within ten years.

Collaborators included the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona and the University of Ioannina in Greece, as well as Nokia UK and Emberion, who are local industrial partners of the Cambridge Graphene Centre.

Published in Nature Communications, the team’s efforts demonstrate the highest reported temperature sensitivity for graphene-based uncooled thermal detectors, capable of resolving temperature changes down to a few tens of µK. Only a few nanowatts of IR radiation power are required to produce such a small temperature variation in isolated devices, about 1000 times smaller than the IR power delivered to the detector by a human hand in close proximity.
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Typical IR photodetectors operate either via the pyroelectric effect, or as bolometers, which measure changes in resistance due to heating. The graphene-based pyroelectric bolometers combine both effects for excellent performance and could be used as pixels in a high resolution thermal imaging camera.

Graphene acts as a built-in amplifier for the pyroelectric signal, without needing external transistor amplifiers as in typical pyroelectric thermal detectors. This direct integration means that there are no losses and no additional noise from connections to external amplifying circuits.
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Current IR photodetectors rely on integrated background IR radiation to provide a signal, and are not useful for spectroscopy. With a high-performance graphene IR detector that gives an excellent signal with less incident radiation, it is possible to isolate different parts of the IR spectrum.

“With a higher sensitivity detector, then you can restrict the band and still form an image just by using photons in a very narrow spectral range, and you can do multi-spectral IR imaging
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Quoted:

http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/academia-research/ten-year-plan-graphene-commercialisation-track

anyone for wavelength tunable thermal scopes in the near future?