Are you fed up with your camera – or any camera – not being able to take decent low-light photos? Just be patient. Swiss researchers have developed a molybdenite light sensor, that they say is five times more light-sensitive than current technology.
On an ordinary light sensor, the semi-conducting silicon surface of each pixel generates an electrical charge in response to exposure to light. The camera’s firmware processes those individual charges to form one cohesive image.
Molybdenite requires much less light energy than silicon, in order to produce a charge. Knowing this, an Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) team led by Prof. Andras Kis developed a proof-of-concept prototype light sensor that utilizes a one-atom-thick layer of molybdenite instead of silicon. They discovered that the sensor’s single pixel produced a charge using just one fifth the amount of light energy required by a pixel on a silicon sensor.
Like silicon, the mineral molybdenite is naturally abundant and relatively inexpensive.
“Our main goal is to prove that MoS2 [molybdenum disulfide] is an ideal candidate for this kind of application,” says Kis. “It would make it possible to take photographs using only starlight.”
Source: EPFL
I'v even recently seen this technology used on tv, it was on national geographic tv, where they recorded a herd of wild elephants in a clearing, saying that it was pitch black but that this new technology allowed them to see from just star light. And it was actually fairly bright.
I'm not sure if its the same thing but i looked it up and its a low-light senor made by canon not to long ago..
http://www.gizmag.com/canon-cmos-video-sensor/26546/
Up until recently the sensitivity to the 3 primary colors was not equal. So they had to design the the CCD where there were 2 pixels for green and 1 each for red and blue in a 4 pixel matrix. Kodak finally came out with technology where green light sensitivity was equal to the other 2 colors and the 4th pixel was in the matrix was released for white light to determine the actual brightness of the scene.
So variation in sensitivity to the 3 colors and slope of the charge level with varying intensity will determine possibility of use in image capturing appliance.