In photography, a color filter array (CFA), or color filter mosaic (CFM), is a mosaic of tiny color filters placed over the pixel sensors of an image sensor to capture color information.
Color filters are needed because the typical photosensors detect light intensity with little or no wavelength specificity, and therefore cannot separate color information. Since sensors are made of semiconductors they obey solid-state physics.
The color filters filter the light by wavelength range, such that the separate filtered intensities include information about the color of light. For example, the Bayer filter (shown to the right) gives information about the intensity of light in red, green, and blue (RGB) wavelength regions. The raw image data captured by the image sensor is then converted to a full-color image (with intensities of all three primary colors represented at each pixel) by a demosaicing algorithm which is tailored for each type of color filter. The spectral transmittance of the CFA elements along with the demosaicing algorithm jointly determine the color rendition. The sensor's passband quantum efficiency and span of the CFA's spectral responses are typically wider than the visible spectrum, thus all visible colors can be distinguished. The responses of the filters do not generally correspond to the CIE color matching functions, so a color translation is required to convert the tristimulus values into a common, absolute color space.
The Foveon X3 sensor uses a different structure such that a pixel utilizes properties of multi-junctions to stack blue, green, and red sensors on top of each other. This arrangement does not require a demosaicing algorithm because each pixel has information about each color. Dick Merrill of Foveon distinguishes the approaches as "vertical color filter" for the Foveon X3 versus "lateral color filter" for the CFA.
Read more about Color Filter Array: List of Color Filter Arrays, Bayer CFA, RGBW Sensor, CYGM Sensor, Manufacture of The CFA
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