ULTRA-LOW NOISE QUAD PHOTORECEIVER FOR SPACE BASED LASER INTERFEROMETRIC GRAVITY WAVE DETECTION GRAVITY WAV…

Public award description

ULTRA-LOW NOISE QUAD PHOTORECEIVER FOR SPACE BASED LASER INTERFEROMETRIC GRAVITY WAVE DETECTION GRAVITY WAVE DETECTION USING SPACE-BASED LONG-BASELINE LASER INTERFEROMETRIC SENSORS IMPOSES STRINGENT NOISE REQUIREMENTS ON THE SYSTEM COMPONENTS, INCLUDING THE LARGE AREA PHOTORECEIVER FRONT ENDS. THE PROPOSED INNOVATION UTILIZES DUAL DEPLETION REGION TECHNOLOGY TO PRODUCE A LARGE AREA (1MM DIAMETER) 2X2 QUAD P-I-N INGAAS PHOTODIODE ARRAY HAVING ~2.1PF CAPACITANCE PER QUADRANT. THE SMALL CAPACITANCE OF THE QUAD PHOTODIODE ARRAY IS LEVERAGED IN COMBINATION WITH A LOW-NOISE JFET-INPUT OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER TO MANUFACTURE ULTRA-LOW NOISE QUAD PHOTORECEIVER ARRAY. EACH ELEMENT (QUADRANT) OF THE PHOTORECEIVER ARRAY WILL HAVE AN INPUT EQUIVALENT CURRENT NOISE <2PA/SQ.RT. HZ IN A FREQUENCY RANGE OF 2 TO 20MHZ. THIS WILL ENABLE SHOT NOISE DOMINATED PERFORMANCE AT AN OPTICAL LOCAL OSCILLATOR POWER OF ~100MW PER QUADRANT.