Uncooled, Long-Life Wavefront/Tracking Sensor

Sensors Unlimited (SUI) will design and deliver a 20 kHz frame rate, 256x256 element focal plane array and camera covering the entire visible and shortwave infrared wavelength bands (0.4 - 1.7 microns). The noise performance of the final imager will meet the desired specification of 6 photons using Sensors Unlimited's proprietary Buffered Input Gate Modulated (BIGM) readout integrated circuit. "Noiseless" in-pixel electronic gain enables very low noise hybrid focal plane arrays by dividing the read noise of the imager by the gain of the all solid-state pre-amplification stage. The extended wavelength response throughout the visible and shortwave wavelength bands is obtained through a novel substrate-removed InGaAs photodiode array design that is currently being used in Sensors Unlimited's commercial cameras. The desired frame rate will be achieved by leveraging SUI's Advanced Detector (Adet) program where the integrated signal is digitized within each pixel, stored in memory, and read out at 333 MHz. In this way, the 20 kHz frame rate may be achieved using the entire frame, and has the added benefit of limiting the number of analog outputs off the readout integrated circuit, thus significantly reducing the complexity of the camera electronics.