Bio-inspired Solid-State Imagers: Learning from the Rod Cell, Hair Cell, and the Compound Eye

Hooman Mohseni
Northwestern University

Monday, April 20, 2009 at 1:00PM
54-134 Engineering IV Building
Refreshments Served

Abstract: Current optical imagers, from the simple cell-phone cameras to the most sophisticated space and military imagers are based on optics and sensors that are drastically different form biological imagers. Interestingly, biological imagers are many orders of magnitude better than manmade imagers, when important parameters such as signal to noise ratio, dynamic range, weight, and power consumption are compared.

In this talk we describe some of the underlying mechanisms in biological imagers, and show how they are used at our lab to make new solid-state (semiconductor) imagers with orders of magnitude improved performance.

Biography: Hooman Mohseni received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2001. He then joined Sarnoff Corporation, where he was a technology leader for several government, domestic, and international commercial projects. He joined Northwestern University in 2004 as a faculty member. Dr. Mohseni is the recipient of the best student paper award from International Semiconductor Device Research Symposium 1999, the Best Ph.D. Thesis Award from Robert McCormick School of Engineering in 2001, was a Searle Junior Fellow in 2005, recipient of National Science Foundation CARRER Award in 2006, and was selected by NSF as one of the 14 US members of the US-Japan Young Scientist Exchange Program on Nanotechnology in 2006, and US-Korea Nano-manufacturing Program in 2007. He received the Young Faculty Award from Defense Advanced Project Agency (DARPA) in 2007. He has served as the Program Chair and Co-chair in several major conferences including IEEE Photonics (LEOS) Annual Meeting, SPIE Optics and Photonics, and SPIE Security and Defense. Dr. Mohseni has published over 60 articles in refereed journals and proceedings, a chapter of a book on IR detectors, and holds ten US and International patents. He has presented more than 30 keynote and invited talks at different commercial, government, and educational institutes.