2 electron sensitization & latent image questions

Actually, a number of us used to discuss the decreasing yield of new things / unit dollar in R&D. It was like squeezing blood out of a turnip. You look at the curve and you find that we are on the shoulder of the R&D curve of analog materials and that indicates that the science is quite mature and near the end of its capability to yield new discoveries. Kodak knew this back in the 90s when more $$s were needed per unit invention/patent.

This happens in any scientific field. You reach a point where so much is known that the rest amounts to just cleaing up the details. Analog is a mature field. We know that the limit on practical speed is about 800. Above that and ambient heat and radiation cause products to deteriorate at a rather rapid rate. We have shown in several different approaches that about 25,000 ISO is the maximum speed that is available from analog systems.

There are benchmarks for image stability, support stability and process solution stability.

So, we have reached a plateau. If there is to be another cycle, someone will have to invest heavily as this next stage will be even more costly than any of the previous cycles of R&D. IDK if it is possible. Some say yes, some say no, we have reached the max.

Industrial customers are complaining as well but we do not see them here on APUG AFAIK.

PE

What do the industrial customers want—better aero films? Better microfilms?

Actually,
Ron is right, but I know there are some very interesting things that are still going to come out of fundamental photographic research, and within our lifetime!

Chazzy said:

What do the industrial customers want—better aero films? Better microfilms?

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Larger digital sensors...

Ray Rogers said:

Actually,
Ron is right, but I know there are some very interesting things that are still going to come out of fundamental photographic research, and within our lifetime!

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Yes, Tani told us of some of his plans. But they are really takeoffs of what is known when you get down to it. The Fuji thermal imaging is just a rehash of Grants work from 40 years ago it seems to me, with a few modern twists and the Fuji materials use some polymers that we looked at years ago but discarded due to the coating problems.

Kodak may drop back to some of these themselves.

PE

Photo Engineer said:

I wish I could sit you two down with people like Annabel and Paul Gilman and a few other EK theoreticians.

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That would be a meeting worth travelling to.

It's *almost* tempting enough to make me stop buying lenses and put the money towards an airfare

Photo Engineer said:

It would be a memorable round table discussion. I'm sure though that that would never come about. I have talked to one of the sensitizing dye chemists and he never wants to discuss synthetic organic chemistry again in his entire life!

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I feel that way about organic chemistry too.

I suspect the pessimism is largely justified when it comes to film, certainly when it comes to optimising emulsions and the associated production engineering for large-scale manufacturing. But the basic science is still relevant. It's been a while since I dabbled directly in solar cells, but they are one of the single biggest (hyped applications of semiconductor nanotechnology and many of the basic questions asked about how emulsions work are directly relevant. This is even more so as there is a strong desire to get away from crystalline materials and to include more polymers, either as substrates or as the conductive electrodes.

AgX recently tipped me off about a recent Nature Nano paper (Dead Link Removed) that got a lot of press and which actually inverted the problem, using crystalline semiconductor nanocrystals as 'sensitisers' for a conductive polymer matrix. The theories and experimental tools applicable to some aspects of emulsion science can be directly applied to this sort of topic.

My own interest in emulsions will have to remain polite and theoretical until the kids are a bit more grown and I have time and inclination to put a lab into the cellar. But as I am sure Keith knows, nanoscience is in a wild flurry state at the moment, with a mad fuzz of ideas and possible applications been generated every time someone makes a new material or particle. I have several times had the pleasure of drawing analogies between what my nanomanufacturing colleagues are newly excited about, and what Lippmann or Herschel were making and studying over a hundred years ago.

Back to the Future

Struan Gray said:

...applications of semiconductor nanotechnology and many of the basic questions asked about how emulsions work are directly relevant.

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I agree.

There are new aplications on the way as well.
Perhaps even silver halide based digital imaging.
Some of these new uses/products will come from outside of the industry.
Many will indeed have their roots in traditional photographic science.

Struan, I really wouldn't mind setting up a little workshop on the topic, I could probably round up funds for a few speakers and make it a Friday + weekend affair to allow for a few talks and then some informal discussions and/or lab work and/or shooting.

Assuming that I can get the relevant speakers, would there be interest? I'll just say, those who can give a physics-based lecture (think of a traditional physics seminar) could be formally invited by my department and have all expenses paid. Others would be left to their own devices, but nevertheless, if it's a convergence of the right people, it could be a rewarding little technical workshop. Actually, when we still had Jack around, there was a workshop like this, back in the 90s. It could be a memorial workshop of sorts, as a way to generate a cohesive theme.

I need names of folks who could be formally invited.... and preferably could give a talk without everybody having to sign an NDA, although that is possible... please help with names and emails if you can!

Keith,
I could not speak. By no means am I remotly qualified.But I would love to sit and listen!
Bill

Yes I'm not qualified. (want to hear about plasma physics?) But I might make the drive down...

Keith, I think it would be very interesting to have a symposium that could brainstorm around the links between photographic emulsion science and other branches of nanotechnology. It is a link that the physical chemists I meet are aware of, but not so much the physicists.

The problem - as always - is costs. I can't justify a transatlantic trip for what for me is a peripheral interest, both to my photographic self and my physicist self. Although I could present a review of the topic for interested APUGers, I would feel a bit of a fraud giving a seminar to scientists who had actually done real work in the field. The work I do know intimately and can talk about at a detailed technical level is only peripherally related to the ideas we are discussing here.

But I think it could be a really interesting - and useful - meeting. As I'm sure you know, nanoscience is blurring the distinctions between traditional subjects, especially as many of the proposed applications are in biological fields. I am suddenly collaborating with neurophysiologists and organic chemists who are as ignorant of solid state physics as I am of nerve cells or synthesis pathways. General teach-ins are more use than in traditional physics.

I don't know how widely you want to cast your net. The MRS has had a number of symposia on nanostructure based photovoltaics and ligand-modified nanocrystals in recent years: their lists of previous year's meetings will provide a useful who's-who of those fields. There are also 'God Professors' like Richard Friend in the UK, or Eicke Weber who runs the German Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. However, my own preference is for small, concentrated meetings, even if that runs the risk of not being all-inclusive or not having the big-name 'prestigious' speakers.

Ah yes, MRS would be an excellent venue; particularly the fall mtg. in Boston. I can check that out. It'll be too late to make it happen this fall, but maybe next year. I am fairly sure that I could find funds for 2-3 speakers here though. Well I will think about it some more as time permits.