Nokia Developing Graphene-Based Camera Sensor

ESPOO, Finland – Recently filled patents reveal that Nokia’s R&D department is working on next-generation graphene-based camera sensors, that are expected to be easier to make, cheaper and better performing.

The advantages of graphene hide in some of its properties. The single layer of carbon cells absorbs only 2.3% of the passing light, and does it very evenly across the whole light spectrum (infrared, visible, ultraviolet). This, combined with its much smaller size, generates much better performance than traditional CMOS sensors, especially in low-light conditions.

The reasons for not yet using graphene in mass production devices hide in some of its downsides at the moment.  Current graphene sensors still lack enough photo sensitivity and generate too much noise for practical applications. This does not mean that graphene is far from showing up on the mass market, as Nokia, pretty much like any modern tech company, may be very close to surpassing the downsides of graphene in order to offer better sensor than its high-end Nokia 808 Pureview, which has an unseen 41 megapixel CMOS sensor.