A Review of Nanotechnology for Highly Sensitive Photodetectors for Vision Sensors of Insect-like Robots

摘要

Insect-like robots for various purposes have been widely studied in recent years. Owing to the small size of the insect-like robots, reducing the size of the receptive field is an important subject. Furthermore, most insect-like robots are required to work at night as well as day. Therefore, an ultrahigh-sensitivity sensor with an ultrasmall size is essential for the realization of insect-like robots. A high photon-to-electron conversion efficiency above the limitation of conventional devices can be achieved in a nanostructure owing to its quantum effect. In this paper, we report on the fabrication methods and materials for making nanostructures, and introduce nanostructure photodetectors with an explanation of the principle of the quantum effect.