New digital camera technology wins Wall Street Journal Innovation Award

By Liz Do, for News @ U of T

Technology developed through a U of T spin off

Woman taking a picture with a camera on her phone. Source: stock.xchng/lockstockb

Woman taking a picture with a camera on her phone. Source: stock.xchng/lockstockb

A new technology invented by Professor Ted Sargent of electrical and computer engineering that allows digital cameras to better capture light has won the Wall Street Journal’s 2010 Technology Innovation Awards in the semiconductor category.

The winning product is called QuantumFilm and was developed by InVisage Technologies Inc., a company founded by Sargent in 2006.

QuantumFilm makes vast improvements in capturing light for digital cameras, and especially cell phone cameras. Using semiconductor quantum dots instead of weakly light-absorbing silicon, QuantumFilm image sensors capture more than 90 per cent of available light instead of the 25 per cent in silicon-based sensors.

Sargent is also the chief technology officer for InVisage, which is based in California but leverages research and technology from U of T.

“The WSJ award is great news for InVisage,” said Sargent, Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology. “It acknowledges the disruptive innovation this company brings to the image sensor market. This award also speaks to the vision and leadership of the individuals at U of T who enabled the highly successful transfer of technology to this dynamic start-up.”

InVisage will have the product available in consumer products as early as the end of next year.

“This is an immense accomplishment for Ted Sargent and InVisage and we congratulate him and his team,” said Professor Cristina Amon, dean of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. “The award reaffirms the exceptional quality of research and technology innovation that comes out of University of Toronto engineering and its spin-off companies.”

Engineering has been at the leading edge of entrepreneurship in Canada since 1951, with the establishment of more than 100 successful spin-off companies.

This article was originally published at www.news.utoronto.ca.

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