IERUS TECHNOLOGIES INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A16-024

Description

Polarization represents the last part of the electromagnetic wave that is yet to be substantially exploited in defense, law enforcement and surveillance applications. The micro-polarizer array (MPA) is the only polarimetric imaging architecture that is just as rugged to vibration and thermal changes as focal plane arrays (FPAs) yet adds negligible size, weight and power (SWAP) impact on fielded systems.Prior MPA-based polarimeters have had measured success, but their performance has been limited by optical and electrical crosstalk.Optical crosstalk occurs when an MPA is glued to an FPA, allowing photons near the edge of the pixel to diffract through the glue line to neighboring pixels. Similarly, electrical crosstalk occurs when a photo-electron in the detector material diffuses to a neighboring detector before being collected. Both of these effects increase polarimetric noise and false polarization signatures and can easily render the system ineffective.IERUS Technologies is partnering with L-3 Communications Cincinnati Electronics to fabricate a long wave infrared (LWIR) MPA directly onto a fully reticulated FPA.Directly fabricating the MPA on the FPA eliminates the glue line and mitigates optical crosstalk, while the fully reticulated pixels mitigate electrical crosstalk.