Eyeo, a new spin-off from the Louvain-based company imec, has raised €15 million to develop and market an innovative light-capturing technology, imec announced on Wednesday.
Eyeo has created glass nanostructures that can make captured images up to three times clearer than those from current cameras.
For over 50 years, most imaging devices have used a technology that employs red, green, and blue colour filters. While these filters capture much of the light spectrum, they compromise image quality and light sensitivity. Manufacturers have addressed these issues by creating larger sensors, which have resulted in bulkier and heavier cameras.
Eyeo’s technology replaces these filters with a layer of glass nanostructures that split light by colour, directing each photon and colour to the correct pixel. This advancement results in three times greater light sensitivity and twice the resolution compared to current sensors. Unlike colour filters, this technology doesn’t require scaling up, paving the way for a new generation of more compact and energy-efficient capture devices, such as cameras and smartphones.
The imec spin-off, based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and Louvain, Belgium, has obtained an initial capital of €15 million and aims to commercialise its first prototypes within two years. The funding comes from imec.xpand, the Dutch investment fund Invest NL, the Belgian start-up investor QBIC, the German public-private investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), and the Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), a Dutch public company supporting start-ups.
