Flexible and Curved Focal Plane Arrays for Image Sensing Applications

Imaging technologies currently use flat planar surfaces to capture images, thus limiting the optical clarity and field of vision of the resulting images. Various fabrication processes aimed
at creating curved imaging surfaces to overcome this issue are being researched. Applications include improved CCD imaging and electronic retinas. Three basic approaches are currently being researched for creating flexible and curved imaging devices. The first is the use of silicon islands with flexible interconnects, which provides good flexibility but limited surface area coverage of the light detecting surface. The second is the fabrication of image sensing arrays on flexible substrates, which also provides good flexibility, but currently, defects introduced during fabrication limit image quality. The final approach is the direct curving of the substrate on which the image sensors will lie. This method creates sensors with the best potential image quality but also with limited radius of curvature and minimal flexibility.
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