Canon has patented a digital camera sensor consisting of five different layers.
The sensor appears similar to the one produced by Foveon, with the Canon sensor having the ability to capture infrared and ultraviolet information in addition to recording red, green and blue.
Digital cameras typically include a piece of glass in front of the sensor to screen excess UV light. The Canon sensor (if it is actually produced) would most likely omit this glass. That might be the only way for there to be enough UV information available for the UV layer to function correctly.
Omitting this layer of glass would have implications when it comes to lens design. Lenses are designed with this piece of glass in mind, and using a lens on a camera that uses glass with a different thickness (or no glass at all) will impact image quality.
Canon might be able to address this problem by using glass that doesn't absorb UV light. (I don't have enough information as to whether this would work or not. I only throw it out as a possability.)
The design would also have implications when it comes to image editing software. Current sensors only record three channels of information. This sensor would add two more channels. The simplest solution to this might be putting the information from the UV and IR layers into a separate file. This would result in an image file that only contained RGB data, with an additional file that could be used for UV or IR photography or to edit the RGB data.
The ability to record UV and IR information might by a selling point for some photographers. The problem might be the additional costs involved in producing the sensor. Those costs would include the design changes to the camera that would come with using the sensor in addition to the increased cost of producing the sensor itself due to the increased complexity.
(Image of sensor design from Northlight Images. I didn't link to their article as it isn't on a permanent page.)
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