>Eyes turn light into electricity without (AFAIK) Silicon.
Correct. A photon hits a chromophore bound to an opsin protein, and flips the chirality of the chromophore from 11-cis to all-trans, which changes the structure of the opsin protein, which starts the cascade of activity leading to sight. We could definitely use chemical detectors to take advantage of this or a similar process.
Correct. A photon hits a chromophore bound to an opsin protein, and flips the chirality of the chromophore from 11-cis to all-trans, which changes the structure of the opsin protein, which starts the cascade of activity leading to sight. We could definitely use chemical detectors to take advantage of this or a similar process.