{"id":221757,"date":"2025-09-12T04:26:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:26:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/researchers-revive-the-pinhole-camera-for-next-gen-infrared-imaging"},"modified":"2025-09-12T04:26:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T09:26:14","slug":"researchers-revive-the-pinhole-camera-for-next-gen-infrared-imaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/09\/researchers-revive-the-pinhole-camera-for-next-gen-infrared-imaging","title":{"rendered":"Researchers revive the pinhole camera for next-gen infrared imaging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-revive-the-pinhole-camera-for-next-gen-infrared-imaging.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers have used the centuries-old idea of pinhole imaging to create a high-performance mid-infrared imaging system without lenses. The new camera can capture extremely clear pictures over a large range of distances and in low light, making it useful for situations that are challenging for traditional cameras.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMany useful signals are in the mid-infrared, such as heat and molecular fingerprints, but cameras working at these wavelengths are often noisy, expensive or require cooling,\u201d said research team leader Heping Zeng from East China Normal University. \u201cMoreover, traditional lens-based setups have a limited depth of field and need careful design to minimize optical distortions. We developed a high-sensitivity, lens-free approach that delivers a much larger depth of field and field of view than other systems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Writing in <i>Optica<\/i>, the researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/opg.optica.org\/optica\/abstract.cfm?doi=10.1364\/OPTICA.566042\" target=\"_blank\">describe<\/a> how they use light to form a tiny \u201coptical pinhole\u201d inside a nonlinear crystal, which also turns the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/infrared+image\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">infrared image<\/a> into a visible one. Using this setup, they acquired clear mid-infrared images with a depth of field of over 35 cm and a field of view of more than 6 cm. They were also able to use the system to acquire 3D images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers have used the centuries-old idea of pinhole imaging to create a high-performance mid-infrared imaging system without lenses. The new camera can capture extremely clear pictures over a large range of distances and in low light, making it useful for situations that are challenging for traditional cameras. \u201cMany useful signals are in the mid-infrared, such [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1694],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-221757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-electronics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}