EPIR, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: A19-164

Description

EPIR proposes the development of high-performance, simultaneous, high operating temperature (HOT) two-color focal plane arrays (FPAs) that will allow the detection of radiation in two infrared bands from the same target points. The first band will cover the midwave wavelength range and will be based on standard state-of-the-art EPIR technology. The second color will cover the longwave wavelength range and will be based on PIN depleted architecture. This architecture will allow HOT operation and dark currents similar or lower to the ones obtained in the MWIR band. The development of MWIR/LWIR HOT FPAs poses several challenges in the area of detector design, material, device physics, fabrication process, hybridization, integration and testing that will be addressed in the program. Our proposed detector architecture, grown using Molecular Beam Epitaxy, is vertically integrated, leading to a stacked detector structure with the capability to simultaneously detect in two spectral bands. Test two-color HOT devices will be fabricated first to assess the device characteristics. We will then fabricate two-color arrays and hybridize them to read-out-integrated-circuits. FPAs will be characterized for responsivity, noise equivalent temperature difference, modulation transfer function, operability and uniformity for each color.