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

Sarath D. Gunapala, Sumith V. Bandara, J.K. Liu, E. M. Luong, Norman B. Stetson, C. A. Shott, J. J. Bock, Sir B. Rafol, Jason M. Mumolo, M. J. McKelvey

IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices · 2000 · 51 citations · 13 references

Concepts

Abstract

A 9 /spl mu/m cutoff 256/spl times/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 (NE/spl Delta/T) 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, NE/spl Delta/T, MRDT, uniformity, and operability.

References

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