What to do with an interesting idea about sensor design?
I'd say a mixture of give up about it, discuss it with others (electronics.stackexchange.com might be good) and simulate it.


Give up about it. Designing sensors is a very complicated process (I did an internship in a research lab about this once). You can do it at home because the software needed is available. The software is very expensive (list of software) but you could buy it. Next, you need experience and time to do the design. You can then have your chip fabricated by specialised companies. If I remember correctly, the cost for the imaging chips (low resolution) were around $5k but this was a few years ago and I might be mistaken.
Discuss it with others / Research. Note, do not send it unsolicited to R&amp;D departments of manufacturers or universities. But, ask people about your idea. They might be able to tell you whether it has been done before, or point out obvious oversights.  Also, you should do some basic research. Read about existing technologies and so on.
Simulate. I would not recommend a computer simulation but rather a mathematical simulation. Show on pen and paper that your idea shows the improvement over the Bayer pattern. This is probably easier than you think, and it will be proof and with it you can go to others. They can then quickly determine whether you are right. That is not possible with a computer simulation. You can of course publish your code and have others check it, but they won't do that. Show this concept on papers and others will believe you.


Also, you would like to clearly define what your improvement is! Is it going to give better resolution, colour representation, manufacturing costs, etc.

Good luck!