SCiO Pocket Molecular Scanner Teardown
Joel_E_B 
Optical Sensor Teardown
It was time to open up the really interesting bit: the optical sensor. This is the magic behind the SCiO, an NIR spectrometer the size of an IC. This sensor was completely custom made, as has been mentioned in interviews with Consumer Physics' CEO. The most standout marking on the sensor denoted it was made, at least in part, by Taiwanese-based manufacturer Ichia, which specializes in "high-end fine pitch flexible circuit board."
Noting the number of connections on the socket connector for the sensor, it was clear that they were not understating the "fine pitch" portion of their business model.
The sensor/heatsink combo was attached to the front of the enclosure with two more screws, bringing the total number of screws used in the entire assembly to five. One nice feature of the housing was the magnets embedded within, which allowed for a magnetic bond between the device and its stands, as seen in the image below.
The sensor was pried apart from the heatsink, leaving us with the last bit to tear down. Using a Dremel and a cutting wheel, the epoxy surrounding the sensor was carefully cut away to reveal its insides.
Inside was a very complex photodiode array with many layers. Alongside was the very bright LED light source and an additional IC, presumably used to control the light source.
The remaining layers of the photodiode array were pulled out with tweezers. There was what appeared to be a diffusion layer: a single sheet of white paper-like material. It's assumed this is meant to diffuse the light even across all the photodiodes. Next, there was a filter layer with visibly different filters covering each of the 12 receptors. Underneath that was an aperture layer: a very thin, opaque layer with different aperture hole sizes for each receptor.
At the very bottom of the sensor stack was a lens layer: a plastic piece with 12 seemingly identical spherical lenses pointed toward the photodiodes.
With all those layers removed, all that was left was the bare wire-bonded sensor array, a testament to the customization that went into this device.
