CHARGE COLLECTION SCANNING TRANSMISSION ELECTRON MICROSCOPY FOR ADVANCED INFRARED SEMICONDUCTOR DEVICES

Electron beam-induced current in scanning transmission electron microscopy technique will be required in order to gain insight and actionable information for development of crystal defect reduction and mitigation strategies for the new generation of high-performance solid-state infrared focal plane arrays. Although the proof-of-concept for the application of technique to semiconductor photonic devices was partially demonstrated in a series of legacy academic and industrial research efforts in the 1970s and 1980s, the challenges associated with its specimen preparation requirements had yet to be overcome.  The Phase I of this program did successfully overcome these challenges and also developed and demonstrated a key alternate charge collection characterization technique.  In the Phase II of this program, the newly-developed specimen preparation methodology will be improved further and utilized for the analysis of advanced single-junction and multi-junction infrared photonic devices of interest to, and/or directly provided by the Army.