Epitaxial Heterojunction Lead-Selenide Photovoltaic Detectors for High Density Focal Plane Arrays

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) is partnering with the University of Central Florida to develop Epitaxial Lead-Selenide Photovoltaic Detectors (EPVDs) tailored for low C-SWaP infrared sensing. The EPVD utilizes a photovoltaic (PV) heterostructure architecture, with epitaxial PbSe junctions grown on GaAs to create efficient, large-format focal plane arrays with small pixels. This PV design enhances dark current suppression and carrier collection efficiency while minimizing thermal noise, resulting in faster, lower-noise imaging across the MWIR band. Further, epitaxial growth on GaAs supports wafer-scale heterogeneous integration onto monolithic silicon read-out integrated circuits (ROICs), and thermoelectric cooling, reducing production costs and enabling high-density pixel layouts for improved sensitivity and detectivity in compact, cost-effective MWIR sensor arrays.