RADIATION MONITORING DEVICES, INC. — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: ST18C-003

Description

The goal of the research is to provide a solar-blind, deep-UV photo-detector array that can be used in instruments detecting chemical and biological agents, such as TAC-BIO II, using UV Raman and Fluorescence measurements. The overall approach is to develop a solid-state detector array that achieves the performance goals for QE (>70%), gain (>1E6), dark current (<0.1 nA), and size (64x64, =100 um pitch). In Phase-1, we investigate the use of silicon, and silicon-carbide devices, where the goal will be to fabricate single elements and characterize their performance. The Phase-2 effort will focus on the most promising technology of the Phase-1 effort, and the goal is to fabricate a 16x16 array of elements that meets the targeted performance specifications. The present technology is a silicon CCD or CMOS camera, with an optical filter to block solar light, which do not provide single-photon sensitivity without cooling. The challenge with silicon devices is extending the QE to the deep UV region, while minimizing the dark current. The challenge with devices fabricated in materials that exhibit a wider bandgap in silicon is developing a fabrication process that minimizes the defect density.