High Performance Thermo-Electrically-Cooled LWIR Mercury Cadmium Telluride Detectors

70192 Thermo-electrically (TE) cooled long wave infrared detectors, with superior performance for remote chemical sensing of different compounds, are needed for the monitoring of weapons of mass destruction. Current technology suffers from device degradation, and large leakage currents, which render them unusable for the most part. This project will incorporate advanced liquid phase epitaxy growth to fabricate high quality HgCdTe detectors with a novel structure, i.e, where the junction is in the large band-gap region providing more robustness. The leakage current also will be reduced because the detectors can be biased to greater degree, taking advantage of the negative luminosity effect. In Phase I, a TE-cooled HgCdTe detector with a cut-off wavelength between 8-12 ¿m will be produced to demonstrate the proposed technology. The performance characteristics of the TE-cooled detectors will be evaluated, and the detector system will be made available to DOE for further review and testing. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Low cost, high performance TE-cooled detector systems should have application to the remote chemical sensing of dangerous chemicals, high-speed sensing, as well as anti-terrorist efforts and security applications.