Super Hardened, EMI and Vibration Immune Chemical Biological Sensor

To satisfy Joint Services needs for the detection and identification of chemical and biological agents, infrared detectors must discriminate within a narrow spectral band tunable over large portions of the infrared spectrum. Currently, large, complex, power hungry and computationally intensive FTIR systems are used for this purpose. We propose here the integration of HgCdTe infrared emitter and detector technology with MEMS technology, which matches HgCdTe’s sensitivity and spectral resolution characteristics with an inexpensive microscale MEMS device immune to vibration and hardened to survive shocks. Initially, an optically pumped HgCdTe microcavity emitter will be coupled with an HgCdTe detector to detect agents with infrared spectral characteristics. In the second step, MEMS technology will be used to tune the emission of the HgCdTe microcavity. In the last step, both the emitter and the detector will be integrated in a monolithic architecture, significantly reducing the complexity and cost of the sensor package. In Phase I, we will design the microcavity and detector components of the sensor. We will also fabricate MWIR fixed cavity emitters and MWIR high operating temperature detectors. The sensors will be used to detect chemical agents and their sensitivity and spectral capabilities will be experimentally measured.