Martin Walther – Robert Rehm – Joachim Fleissner – Johannes Schmitz

The State Research Prize for applied research went to the research group led by the physicist Dr. Martin Walther from the Freiburg Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid-State Physics (IAF). The team developed the world's first two-color infrared detector chip together with the company AIM Infrarot-Module GmbH in Heilbronn. Two-color heat image cameras have the potential of solving previously unrealizable measuring tasks in the area of infrared technology. They capture radiation in the infrared range that is not visible to the human eye and thus allow the user to "see" and photograph bodies in the dark on the basis of the thermal radiation they emit. The team is now working on developing multicolor IR sensors, which could one day be used to create images in the complete color spectrum. (Source: University of Freiburg)