Ben-Gurion Awarded $6.5M to Develop Nanocoating for Night Vision

A team led by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has received a $6.5 million grant to develop a thin-film nanocoating for night- vision glasses that change invisible light to visible using the short-wave infrared light spectrum.

Existing night-vision systems are cumbersome, expensive, often inches thick and require a power supply. The new nanoglasses to be developed under the three-year Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative grant will be only a few microns thick and will operate over any eyewear.

“We will use a smart layer based on nanophotonics technologies to change invisible light to visible,” said team leader Gabby Sarusi, a member of the university’s Ilse Katz Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology and BGU’s Homeland Security Institute. “The result will be like seeing at night with full moonlight.”

The glasses consist of multiple layers of nanocolloid material that absorb infrared light, using advanced nanophotonic techniques, and convert it to visible light using organic LEDs.

“We are taking advantage of nightglow as our illuminator to visualize using short-wave infrared light spectrum,” Sarusi said. “This is unlike night-vision goggles that only amplify visible light and are therefore vulnerable to ‘dazzling.’ ”

Team members include researchers from Weizmann Institute of Science, Tel Aviv University, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

For more information, visit: www.aabgu.org