Word: polacolor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...very complexity of the problem was what appealed most to Dr. Edwin H. Land and his colleagues at the Polaroid Corp. in Cambridge, Mass. This week they began to market the improbable. Polacolor, a self-processing color film. Now, just 50 seconds after the snap of a shutter, a surgeon can record a sharp color shot of a delicate operation; an alert military reconnaissance pilot can produce a revealing picture of an enemy operation; a doting parent can turn out a portrait of his child in remarkably accurate tints...
Conventional color films work in much the same way. But just below each layer of Polacolor's silver halide is a layer containing strange double molecules synthesized by Polaroid's chemists. The molecules are shaped roughly like dumbbells. Each of them has at one end a submolecule of photographic developer. At the other end is a submolecule of brilliantly colored dye. Connecting the dye and developer is a strong chain of carbon atoms...
This is the secret of Polacolor. The three superimposed images-blue, green and red-capture developer molecules with dyes of appropriate color attached to them. In spots on the film that have been exposed to blue light the silver halide grains in the top layer capture and hold all the yellow dye, which lies in the layer just below. Since no red or green light has reached this part of the film, the magenta and cyan dyes in the deeper layers are free to move to the surface. Acting together, they make a spot of blue...
...Polacolor is not entirely foolproof. For one thing, the user must take some account of temperature, both when snapping a picture and developing it. This is presumably why the new film is first being introduced in Florida; it will not be sold in the north until the weather warms up. With elementary care, though, any amateur should be able to take good pictures with Polacolor...
Among the big users of Polacolor will be industrial and scientific laboratories, which often need to take quick color shots of a fleeting stage in a process or experiment. But of all Polacolor's potential users, it is the military from whom Chemist Land may get his largest orders. The ability to photograph the enemy in color and see the picture almost immediately will be of enormous advantage in many dangerous situations. No enemy of the U.S. is likely to enjoy this advantage for years; in spite of frantic efforts, says Land, the Russians have not yet succeeded...