Physical Limits to the Performance of Imaging Systems

SEP 01, 1989

A half‐century of electronic imaging technology has begun to match and even surpass the performance of the eye, an amazingly sophisticated photon detector perfected by evolution.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881180

Albert Rose

Paul K. Weimer

Our visual system provides our principal contact with the world around us. This system, thanks to millions of years of natural development, achieved a high degree of perfection long before humans arrived on the scene. To attain such perfection, these evolutionary processes had to recognize the quantum nature of light—a remarkable accomplishment.

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More about the Authors

Albert Rose. Chronar Corporation, Princeton, New Jersey.

Paul K. Weimer. RCA David Sarnoff Research Center, Princeton.