The photo cameras that we currently use are not so good because of the flat image sensor which is responsible for turning the light into electrical signals. Now, thanks to a breakthrough of the researchers from the Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, we are able to create curved sensors which means that we can design artificial retinas and other endoscopic devices.
In order to be as efficient as a human eye, the sensor will use tiny flexible wires to connect individual pixels. This is the first time that somebody manages to design a working camera and “this strategy opens up exciting, new engineering design possibilities by eliminating the two dimensional, planar constraints of conventional, semiconductor wafer-based optoelectronics,” said John Rogers, Professor or Materials Science and Engineering at University of Illinois.
As you probably figured, if you try to flex the flat sensor, its light-sensitive pixels will suffer damages. This breakthrough improves flexibility by 40% thanks to the small wires that were designed to engross the stress. For the moment, this flexible sensor supports 256 pixels while the human eye supports 576 megapixels, therefore there is more work to be done to improve this technology.