Wild speculation

I was reading a news brief in the Aug. issue Photonics/Spectra
magazine, it's an optical industry periodical. A team from MIT has
produced a clear photomask (used to make microprocessors) that
features a pattern of holes and microlenses. They got the idea from
the "Brittle Star" a marine creature that has multi-element eyes
patterned this way.
What I wonder is, could the pattern, one microlens surrounded by a
hex pattern of "holes" or optical windows be used in front of a
CCD/CMOS chip to radically extend the dynamic range of the sensor?
Right now, Fuji does this in a way, with a sensor featuring a large
and small sensing element. But this photomask could be tailored to
any pixel size. The way dynamic range extension works is pretty simple
and I can't see that this technique wouldn't work unless for some
reason they couldn't use the clear photomask on the CCD/CMOS surface.
-Rich


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