New Light Sensing Camera That Could Detect Dark Matter

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed one of the highest performance cameras ever which may be helpful in the search for chemical signs of life on other planets and in detecting elusive dark matter. The camera is made up of more than 1,000 sensors or pixels that count single photons. The journal, Optics Express describes it as a camera made of sensors from superconducting nanowires that can detect single photons. The researchers have remarked that the camera is the best photon counter in terms of speed, efficiency, and range of color sensitivity. The team has used these detectors to demonstrate Einstein’s spooky action at a distance example.

The ‘quantum entanglement’ theory states that the measurement of one particle will immediately influence another particle regardless of the distance between them. Nanowire detectors do not count false signals caused by noise rather instead of photons, according to the researchers. This feature is helpful for dark matter searches and space based astronomy. The camera could be useful in future space telescopes searching for chemical signs of life on other plants and also in newer instruments designed to search for dark matter which is believed to constitute most of the stuff in the universe, the researchers said. Cameras with higher pixel counts and larger physical dimensions than the existing ones are required for these applications.

The camera is small in size, measuring 1.6 millimetres on a side and packed with 1,024 sensors, 32 columns by 32 rows to make high resolution images. The main challenging factor was to figure out a way to collate and obtain results from so many detectors without causing the camera to overheat. “My primary motivation for making the camera is NASA’s Origins Space Telescope Project which is looking into using these arrays for analysing the chemical composition of planets orbiting stars outside of our solar system,” said Varun Verma, an electronics engineer at NIST.