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Color Filter Array
Color Filter Array
Color Filter Array
The Bayer color filter mosaic. Each two-by-two submosaic contains 2 green, 1 blue and 1 red filter, each covering one pixel sensor. In photography, a color filter array (CFA), or color filter mosaic (CFM), is a mosaic of tiny color filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture color information. Color filters are needed because the typical photosensors detect light intensity with little or no wavelength specificity, and therefore cannot separate color information.[1] Since sensors are made of semiconductors they obey solid-state physics. The color filters filter the light by wavelength range, such that the separate filtered intensities include information about the color of light. For example, the Bayer filter (shown to the right) gives information about the intensity of light in red, green, and blue (RGB) wavelength regions. The raw image data captured by the image sensor is then converted to a full-color image (with intensities of all three primary colors represented at each pixel) by a demosaicing algorithm which is tailored for each type of color filter. The spectral transmittance of the CFA elements along with the demosaicing algorithm jointly determine the color rendition.[2] The sensor's passband quantum efficiency and span of the CFA's spectral responses are typically wider than the visible spectrum, thus all visible colors can be distinguished. The responses of the filters do not generally correspond to the CIE color matching functions,[3] so a color translation is required to convert the tristimulus values into a common, absolute color space.[4] The Foveon X3 sensor uses a different structure such that a pixel utilizes properties of multi-junctions to stack blue, green, and red sensors on top of each other. This arrangement does not require a demosaicing algorithm because each pixel has information about each color. Dick Merrill of Foveon distinguishes the approaches as "vertical color filter" for the Foveon X3 versus "lateral color filter" for the CFA.[5][6]
Very common RGB filter. With one blue, one 22 red, and two green. Bayer-like with one of the green filters modified to "emerald"; used in a few Sony cameras. One cyan, two yellow, and one magenta; used in a few cameras of Kodak. One cyan, one yellow, one green, and one magenta; used in a few cameras. 22 22 22
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Bayer CFA
A 2005 patent application depicting an arrangement of red, green, blue, and "white" sensor filters referred to there as "RGBW color filters having the Bayer pattern". The Bayer CFA is named for its inventor, Dr. Bryce E. Bayer from Eastman Kodak. It is realized by application of color filters over the photodiodes used in sensors, cameras, videocameras, and scanners, for creation of the color image.
RGBW sensor
An RGBW matrix (from Red, Green, Blue, White) is a CFA that includes "white" or transparent filter elements that allow the photodiode to respond to all colors of light; that is, some cells are "panchromatic", and more of the light is detected, rather than absorbed, compared to the Bayer matrix. Kodak announced several RGBW CFA patterns in 2007, all of which have the property that when the panchromatic cells are ignored,
the remaining color filtered cells are arranged such that their data can be processed with a standard Bayer demosaicing algorithm.
CYGM sensor
A CYGM matrix (Cyan, Yellow, Green, Magenta) is a CFA that uses mostly secondary colors, again to allow more of the incident light to be detected rather than absorbed. Other variants include CMY and CMYW matrices.
usually layers of transmissive (absorptive) organic or pigment dyes. Ensuring that the dyes have the right mechanical propertiessuch as ease of application, durability, and resistance to humidity and other atmospheric stressesis a challenging task. This makes it difficult, at best, to fine-tune the spectral responsivities.". Given that the CFAs are deposited on the image sensor surface at the BEOL (back end of line, the later stages of the integrated circuit manufacturing line), where a low-temperature regime must be rigidly observed (due to the low melting temperature of the aluminum metalized "wires" and the substrate mobility of the dopants implanted within the bulk silicon), organics would be preferred over glass. On the other hand, some CVD silicon oxide processes are low temperature processes. Ocean Optics has indicated that their patented dichroic filter CFA process (alternating thin films of ZnS and Cryolite) can be applied to spectroscopic CCDs. Gersteltec sells photoresists that possesses color filter properties.