Low Light, Short Wave Infrared, Solid State Photodetector

The objective of this proposal is to demonstrate the feasibility of the breakthrough technology of internal Discrete Amplification to design and develop low light level single photon sensitive short wave infrared photodetector. These short wave infrared photodetectors will have very high gain, ultra low noise, high detection efficiency and low reset time in the spectral range of 1 m to 2.2 m. The technology of internal Discrete Amplification allows one to achieve the combination of high speed, very high gain, ultra low noise and continuous operation with no dead time between the biasing pulses. The proposed detectors would have performance parameters significantly superior to those of conventional avalanche photodiodes and photomultiplier tubes, and will be designed to meet the low light level photodetector requirements. The expected performance parameters include greater than 20% photon detection efficiency, reset time of less than 150 ns, gain of 100,000 to 1,000,000 and excess noise factor of less than 1.1. It will also have flexibility in the choice of active area size and shape, including the ability to create multi-element photodetector arrays. These new capabilities could lead to important advances in low light level detection, sensing and tacking applications.