Improvement of Sb-based III-V SLS Epi Materials for IR FPA Applications

IIIV super latticebased detectors incorporating antimony allow highperformance infrared detection in key midwave (5m) to beyond long wave (10m) wavelengths. Overcoming technical challenges related to the epitaxial growth will enable a large cost reduction and performance boost to remote sensing in the infrared. This effort will focus on defect reduction in strainedlayer super lattice (SLS) detectors to improve focalplane array (FPA) pixel operability imaging performance. The SLS consist of Sbbased IIIV materials to be grown using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technology on GaSb substrates. The detector epi materials development and optimization will be performed in stateoftheart Sbcapable multiwafer production MBE reactors. The detector epi materials for FPA application will be evaluated in conjunction with our collaborators at Raytheon Vision Systems (RVS) and L3 Communications Cincinnati Electronics (L3CE). Baseline SLS materials with InAs/GaSb super lattices as well as novel Ga free InAs/InAsSb super lattices will be explored. The InAs/InAsSb materials system has shown promising results grown via MOCVD1. With MBE technology, much sharper interfaces can be realized and at lower background doping. The Gafree approach could further reduce defect by avoiding defects associated with Ga droplets from Gabased MBEgrown layers. With success of the phase I effort in high quality lowdefect materials, multiwafer MBE foundry capacity allows rapid scaleup to commercial volumes.