Development of High Speed Mercury Cadmium Telluride Detector Arrays with Integral Readouts

50186-98-I Development of High Speed Mercury Cadmium Telluride Detector Arrays with Integral Readouts--Fermionics Corporation, 4555 Runway Street, Simi Valley, CA 93063-3479; (805) 582-0155 Dr. Peter C. C. Wang, Principal Investigator Dr. Peter C. C. Wang, Business Official DOE Grant No. DE-FG03-98ER82576 Amount: $75,000 Low noise and high frequency detection of radiation in the 3-5 micron (infrared) region demands the use of high performance detector and readout circuitry. Current infrared sensing architectures are not adequate for high speed motion tracking. There is a void in the technology required for such an application. Phase I will use mercury cadmium telluride detectors, sensitive to the 3-5 micron spectral band, together with new multiplexed, oversampling, analog-to-digital readout circuitry, to deliver digital information directly from the detector to achieve high frequency and low noise performance. Graded bandgap p-n heterojunction high speed detectors will be fabricated from multiple layers of material grown by liquid-phase epitaxy. The assembly consisting of the detector and the oversampling analog-to-digital readout circuitry will be tested for high speed and low noise performance. Commercial Application and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: Commercial applications should be expected in high speed tool machining, high speed and armor vehicle manufacturing, structural research, laser tracking, designating and motion tracking. _