Liquid Crystal Infrared Microcamera

In response to the DARPA need for extremely lightweight, low-power, thermal microcameras for use on microvehicles, POC is developing a new Liquid Crystal Infrared (LC-IR) microcamera, highly sensitive in the thermal waveband, requiring no cooling, and with high resolution and uniformity. In Phase I POC fabricated a LC-IR microcamera prototype and demonstrated its operation in the MWIR/LWIR at 30 frames/s; experimentally showed operation of LC-based IR detectors at ambient temperatures from 8C to 52C; showed that dual-frequency LC can be used for 1000 frame/s detectors; built a theoretical model of the LC FPA and identified its optimal parameters; and theoretically proved that the LC-IR microcamera can be lightweight (<15 g), small (<0.6 cu in.), consume <200 mW of electric power, and be able to resolve a 1 m target with 1C contrast at 100 m range within a 40 deg. field of view. Because LC FPA fabrication is based on mature display technology compatible with standard integrated circuit processes, we expect the prices of the LC-IR microcamera to be <$5,000. In Phase II POC will develop the materials and methods identified in Phase I for the 512x512 LC FPA and assemble a LC-IR microcamera that meets all DARPA requirements.