Diffraction and photometric limits in today's miniature digital camera systems

Andreas Brückner; Michael Schöberl

doi:10.1117/12.2003819

13 March 2013 Diffraction and photometric limits in today's miniature digital camera systems

Andreas Brückner, Michael Schöberl

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 8616, MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XII; 861617 (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2003819
Event: SPIE MOEMS-MEMS, 2013, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Image sensors for digital cameras are built with ever decreasing pixel sizes. The size of the pixels seems to be limited by technology only. However, there are also hard theoretical limits for classical miniature camera systems: During a certain exposure time only a certain number of photons will reach the sensor. The resulting shot noise thus limits the signal-to-noise ratio. On the other hand, diffraction sets another limit for image resolution in case that there is enough brightness in the scene. In this work we show that current sensors are already surprisingly close to these limits.

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Andreas Brückner and Michael Schöberl "Diffraction and photometric limits in today's miniature digital camera systems", Proc. SPIE 8616, MOEMS and Miniaturized Systems XII, 861617 (13 March 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2003819

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