A Longwave Infrared Focal Plane Array Enhanced by Backside-Configured Plasmonic Structures

Author

Vaillancourt, Jarrod ; Mojaverian, Neda ; Xuejun Lu

Author_Institution

Appl. NanoFemto Technol. LLC, Lowell, MA, USA

Volume

26

Issue

8

fYear

2014

fDate

15-Apr-14

Firstpage

745

Lastpage

748

Abstract

We demonstrate a 320 × 256 longwave infrared focal plane array (FPA) enhanced by backside-configured surface plasmonic structures. The backside-configured plasmonic structures were fabricated on the photodetector side rather than the substrate side. The backside plasmonic FPA shows an average noise-equivalent temperature difference (NEΔT) of 110 mK with a standard deviation σ of 11.09 mK at the blackbody temperature of 30°C. Over 50% improvement in NEΔT is obtained by the backside plasmonic structures. Since the backside configured plasmonic structures can be fabricated on the photodetector side before the substrate lapping and removing, the difficulty of fabricating a plasmonic FPA is greatly reduced.

Keywords

focal planes; infrared detectors; optical fabrication; optical noise; photodetectors; plasmonics; backside plasmonic FPA; backside-configured surface plasmonic structures; blackbody temperature; longwave infrared focal plane array; noise-equivalent temperature difference; photodetector; standard deviation; substrate lapping; temperature 30 degC; Arrays; Fabrication; Optical surface waves; Photodetectors; Plasmons; Quantum dots; Substrates; Longwave infrared (LWIR); backside-configured plasmonic structure; focal plane array (FPA); noise-equivalent temperature difference $({rm NE}Delta{rm T})$; plasmonic enhancement;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Photonics Technology Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1041-1135

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/LPT.2014.2303118

Filename

6727416