High Dynamic Range Infrared Sensors for Remote Sensing Applications

• Published in: IGARSS 2018 - 2018 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium pp. 6342 - 6345
• Main Authors: Gunapala, Sarath, Ting, David, Soibel, Alexander, Khoshakhlagh, Arezou, Keo, Sam, Rafol, Sir, Hill, Cory, Fisher, Anita, Luong, Edward, Liu, John, Mumolo, Jason, Pepper, Brian, Choi, Kwong-Kit, D'Souza, Arvind, Masterjohn, Christopher
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.07.2018
• Subjects: Birds; Dark current; Detectors; focal plane array; high dynamic range; high quantum efficiency; infrared detector; Infrared detectors; Optical resonators; Signal to noise ratio; Substrates; type-II superlattice
• ISSN: 2153-7003
• DOI: 10.1109/IGARSS.2018.8518505

In this presentation, we will report our recent efforts in achieving high performance in Antimonides type-II superlattice (T2SL) based infrared photodetectors using the barrier infrared detector (BIRD) architecture. The recent emergence of barrier infrared detectors such as the nBn [1] and the XBn [2] have resulted in mid-wave infrared (MWIR) and long-wave infrared (LWIR) detectors with substantially higher operating temperatures than previously available in III-V semiconductor based MWIR and LWIR detectors. The initial nBn devices used either InAs absorber grown on InAs substrate, or lattice-matched InAsSb alloy grown on GaSb substrate, with cutoff wavelengths of \sim 3.2 \ \mu \mathrm{m} and \sim 4\ \mu \mathrm{m} , respectively. While these detectors could operate at much higher temperatures than existing MWIR detectors based on InSb, their spectral responses do not cover the full ( 3 - 5.5 \mu \mathrm{m}) Mwir atmospheric transmission window. There also have been nBn detectors based on the InAs/GaSb T2SL absorber [3], [4].