Has anything changed significantly since 2014 that would make today's cellphones more efficient at detecting gammas?
IIRC the tiny size of the cmos camera was the limiting factor...
The CMOS sensors have gotten much bigger (4-6x area plus there's multiple cameras) and the amplifiers are now almost thermal noise limited... but there's so much AI between you and the image that without using RAW it would be stomped out.
I'm not sure how well the phone cameras would deal with cooling... since you don't really need the mechanical AF or zoom to work. That would be the next step, if you deconstructed them.
Considering the size of modern sensors (48MPix and more) I doubt there's any hope for any continuous processing of Raw sensor data on the phone. Or is it?
Agreed. You would want to black them out and set them for long exposures to minimize dead readout time. You can get RAW data out of iPhone Pros, though it's not something I've played with.
I'm not sure how well the phone cameras would deal with cooling... since you don't really need the mechanical AF or zoom to work. That would be the next step, if you deconstructed them.