From Photons to Reasoning

A new image sensor with staggered pixel readout enables higher time resolution, making it suitable for in vivo neural spike imaging. According to the authors, including Eric Fossum, one of the main inventors of the modern camera sensor, this sensor can also enhance motion resolution in low-light conditions for general imaging applications.

Figure above from the referenced journal paper:

a) neural spike shape (GEVI)

b) a conventional image sensor image with 1.25 ms and 5 ms exposure times provide either noisy image or low time resolution, respectively. Both cases show two neural spikes imaged as only one.

c) a novel staggered pixel wise exposure between sets of 2×2 pixels provides two ways to make two consecutive neural spikes resolved from the recorded images. First way shows the same 5 ms exposure staggered by 1.25 ms each between the 4 pixels, while the second way shows varying exposure times between the 4 pixels, from 2.5 ms to 20 ms.

Journal Reference:

Jie Zhang, Jonathan Newman, Zeguan Wang, Yong Qian, Pedro Feliciano-Ramos, Wei Guo, Takato Honda, Zhe Sage Chen, Changyang Linghu, Ralph Etienne-Cummings, Eric Fossum, Edward Boyden, Matthew Wilson. Pixel-wise programmability enables dynamic high-SNR cameras for high-speed microscopy. Nature Communications, 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48765-5