Researchers Create Camera By Integrating Sensors Into Polymer Fiber.
Technology Review(6/17, Greene) reports that "researchers at MIT have integrated a collection of light sensors into polymer fibers, creating a new type of camera" that "could be lightweight, robust, and even foldable." Yoel Fink, "a professor of materials sciences and engineering and the lead researcher on the project," conceded "that the applications aren't yet well defined," but "suggests that such a fiber-based camera could be used in a large foldable telescope or integrated into soldiers' uniforms." The researchers created the camera by integrating "eight semiconducting light sensors into a polymer cylinder with a diameter of 25 millimeters," after which "the polymer cylinder was heated and then stretched so that the diameter shrank the diameter of hundreds of micrometers...retaining the orientation of the sensors."
