GHz, Octavespanning Photodetectors for MWIR/LWIR

The midwave infrared (MWIR) and longwave infrared (LWIR) spectral regions provide important operational capabilities including the chemical fingerprint region, visibility through fog and obscurants, thermal imaging, and detecting directed energy weapons and projectiles.State-of-the art detectors that operate in the MWIR/LWIR (e.g. HgCdTe or strained-layer InSb) require expensive epitaxial wafer manufacturing methods, bulky cooling systems, and are limited in their response rate.This leads to exceptional cost penalties (> 50,000 x silicon CMOS) due to manufacturing costs and yield limitations.Alternative detectors such as bolometers or pyrometers can be tuned for wide spectral bands, but exhibit considerable thermal lag, preventing them from achieving high speed detection, while high-speed photomultiplier tubes are limited to operational wavelengths shorter than 1.7 m (and typically much shorter).To address these shortcomings, Nanohmics proposes to develop and demonstrate a direct-transduction sensor that provides GHz bandwidth and <1pW/rtHz NEP based on scalable fabrication techniques.