TMOS: Night Vision Glasses

2024: Product Announcement

In late July 2024, researchers at TMOS, the Center for Advanced Development in Transformational Meta-Optical Systems, unveiled new night vision goggles with an infrared filter thinner than cling film.

Typically, night vision devices are used by the military, hunting enthusiasts, and photographers willing to wear heavy equipment, but miniaturization of night vision devices can allow for wider, ubiquitous use of such means. The creation of night vision filters, which weigh less than a gram, can be arranged as a thin film on traditional glasses and allow the user to see the visible and infrared spectrum at the same time, opens up new possibilities for everyday applications, for example, driving in the dark, walking at night and working in low light conditions, which so far requires the use of bulky and uncomfortable headlights.

Tmos

Traditional night vision technology uses the passage of infrared rays through a lens and their encounter with a photocathode, which converts photons into electrons that pass through a microchannel plate, amplifying the signal. Then these electrons, passing through the phosphor screen, are again converted into photons, creating an image that can be seen with the naked eye.

The new metasurface-based infrared conversion technology uses a minimum number of elements, which significantly reduces the area occupied by the device. Photons pass through a single resonant metasurface of lithium niobate, which amplifies the signal and involves it in the spectrum of visible light. Unlike old technologies, such a device can operate at room temperature, which eliminates the need for bulky and heavy cooling systems. In addition, unlike traditional image forming systems, the new technology allows overlaying images obtained in the infrared and visible ranges, which facilitates the orientation of the user.^[1]

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