If it gathers light in the infrared spectrum, how is noise eliminated? Ambient room temperature is an infrared-peak blackbody. I'd like to see more on the filtering that has to go into images taken with such a sensor.
"infrared" is actually an extremely large portion of the spectrum when viewed on a proper log scale. It's a poor label because it often leads to this confusion.
400nm to 700nm is 'visible light', a factor of 1.75x, infrared is 700nm to 1mm, a factor of 1428x.
Only a small portion of this is significant for thermal infrared applications, which at room temperatures are about 8um-15um.
Near infrared, up to about 1500nm, acts pretty much like light we can't see, and can be detected well on the same CCD/CMOS sensors (which need filters to block it out).
Practically every CMOS and CCD camera today has an infrared filter window since the sensors are particularly sensitive in infrared. Homemade night-vision cameras usually involve removing that filter.
400nm to 700nm is 'visible light', a factor of 1.75x, infrared is 700nm to 1mm, a factor of 1428x.
Only a small portion of this is significant for thermal infrared applications, which at room temperatures are about 8um-15um.
Near infrared, up to about 1500nm, acts pretty much like light we can't see, and can be detected well on the same CCD/CMOS sensors (which need filters to block it out).