Long-wavelength 256×256 GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) palm-size camera

Author

Gunapala, Sarath D. ; Bandara, Sumith V. ; Liu, John K. ; Luong, E.M. ; Stetson, N. ; Shott, Craig A. ; Bock, J.J. ; Rafol, S.B. ; Mumolo, Jason M. ; McKelvey, Mark J.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

Volume

47

Issue

2

fYear

2000

fDate

2/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

326

Lastpage

332

Abstract

A 9 μm cutoff 256×256 palm-size quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) camera weighing only 2.5 lbs, and using 5.5 W of power has been demonstrated. Excellent imagery, with a noise equivalent differential temperature (NEΔT) of 23 mK has been achieved. It is well known that QWIP has very low 1/f noise, high operability, and uniformity. As a result, this camera uses a prerecorded nonuniformity correction table (i.e., gains and offsets) stored in its read-only-memory during operation, which enabled the miniaturization of this camera. In this paper, we discuss the development of this very sensitive long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) camera based on a GaAs/AlGaAs QWIP focal plane array (FPA) and its performance in terms of quantum efficiency, NEΔT, MRDT, uniformity, and operability

Keywords

1/f noise; III-V semiconductors; aluminium compounds; arrays; cameras; focal planes; gallium arsenide; photodetectors; quantum well devices; semiconductor quantum wells; 2.5 lb; 256 pixel; 5.5 W; 65536 pixel; 9 micron; FPA; GaAs-AlGaAs; QWIP camera; ROM; camera miniaturization; focal plane array; infrared photodetector; long-wavelength MQW IR photodetector; low 1/f noise; noise equivalent differential temperature; operability; palm-size camera; prerecorded nonuniformity correction table; quantum efficiency; quantum well IR photodetector; read-only-memory; uniformity; Cameras; Gallium arsenide; Infrared detectors; Missiles; NASA; Photodetectors; Propulsion; Semiconductor device noise; Sensor arrays; Space technology;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.822276

Filename

822276