Expert: John Oliverio - 4/6/2009

Question
Hi  John,

You are now involved in one of the most important science experiments in history.  www.EinsteinGravity.com

John, we need to locate a video recording device (camcorder, cellphone, etc) that has a metalic retina.

In other words, the piece of the recording equipment that captures the image, needs to be made of metal.

Can you tell us if this is the way modern video recording equipment works, and if not, if there is such a thing.

Thanks so much,
AL

Answer
Well, many modern cameras use a CMOS instead of CCD.  Would that qualify?  You can find an article on CMOS here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CMOS

Before video we of course had movie cameras.  In that case film would take the place of the retina and film used silver halide as part of its make up.
 

However, I know of no way to have an all metal retina.  A retina has to be photo sensitive.  Also, all metals are conductive....    So lets say there was a bit of metal that is conductive...    well all you have there is a binary device.  You put some wires on it and all you would get is "yes" there is light or "no" there isn't.  I guess if there were different metals with different levels of sensitivity you could come up with some kind of RGB mosaic or an alloy that did the job.  But I gather that isn't what you are asking.

So you have two questions.

1. No, there are no photo sensitive metals.
2. Modern video cameras use either CCD or CMOS as the "retina".

John