Optical Nanostructures in CMOS Technology

With our nanoSPECTRAL technology, complex colour, spectral and polarization sensors are produced cost-effectively, which record the spectral properties and polarization state of the incident light. This opens up new possibilities for the spectral analysis of light sources and objects in transmission and reflection. The basis for this are photodiodes and optical nanostructures that are integrated into metal layers of CMOS processes. This means that the metal layers used in a modern semiconductor process are structured in the nanometer range and thus filters, photodiodes and analog and digital signal processing are integrated. This results in highly integrated, monolithic sensors with many spectral channels at low cost. In contrast to conventional optical filters such as thin-film filters, our optical nanostructures do not require any additional steps such as the application of optical filter layers. Since the nanoSPECTRAL technology is available in a commercial CMOS process, products based on it are available in industrial quality and at short notice.

Depending on the application, it is possible to adjust the number of spectral channels, photodiodes and pixels, vary the wavelength of the channels and design the geometry according to the customer's specific requirements. This flexibility, together with the cost-efficient manufacturing method of our nanoSPECTRAL spectral sensor solution, opens up a wide range of new, price-sensitive application possibilities:

• Smart farming in agriculture
• Analysis of gases by measuring color changes
• Analysis of liquids by spectral absorption measurement
• Food analysis by measuring reflectance spectra
• Medical applications at the point of care
• Color control for LED lighting systems
• Analysis of moisture, ingredients and irritants in hygiene products
• Applications in cosmetics