Albert Brault

Albert Brault

Awards

IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award

Biography

Peter Dillon and Albert Brault combined their expertise to realize single-chip color image sensors that revolutionized color photography and provided the foundation for the digital imaging applications we take for granted today. Working at Eastman Kodak, to improve on existing monochrome-only image sensors Dillon conceived the concept of fabricating a pattern of color filters directly on top of the individual pixels of a CCD image sensor to capture color images with just a single sensor. Dillon consulted with Brault, who realized that such a color filter array could be fabricated using sublimable dyes deposited onto a suitable substrate through photoresist masks and that this technique could be integrated directly into the CCD fabrication process. As a result, color filters could be simultaneously applied to the hundreds of image sensor chips being fabricated on the same wafer. The technology they pioneered is now used to capture color photos and videos in products including smart phone cameras, web cams, automobile backup cameras, and drones.