RADIATION MONITORING DEVICES, INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N191-008
RADIATION MONITORING DEVICES, INC. — SBIR Phase I award from Department of Defense.
- Amount
- $139,993
- Agency
- Department of Defense · Navy
- Program / Phase
- SBIR · Phase I
- Topic
- N191-008
- Solicitation
- 19.1
- NAICS
- —
- Place of performance
- MA
- Period
- 2019-05-14 → 2019-11-11
Description
LIDAR is used for understanding the operating environment for naval activity, where profiling LIDAR systems have been developed for detection of mines. One critical component of the system is a photodetector, and the proposed research will develop a high-performance detector for 400 – 500 nm light. Photomultiplier tubes have the bandwidth and signal amplification needed but are bulky and have poor quantum efficiency. Compact solid-state sensors made some wide-band gap semiconductors address these issues but tend to be noisy. The Phase-1 effort will identify the performance-limiting noise source, often associated with material quality, focusing on wide-band-gap Ga-based materials, such as GaP and AlGaAs, to reduce the room temperature dark current. The Phase-2 effort will develop a plan to mitigate the performance limitations and fabricate a high-efficiency, high-bandwidth photodetector prototype for Naval LIDAR.