Advanced Type-II SLS Materials for HOT MWIR FPA Applications

This Phase II SBIR proposes to develop high-quality high-performance infrared epitaxy materials based on Type II SLS absorber material strain balanced to GaSb substrate for Mid-Wave Infrared (MWIR) seeker FPA applications. The materials will be developed to ensure that this effort will benefit from advanced unipolar barrier detector design and exceptional detector characterization capabilities. The epi materials will be grown with Sb-capable multi-wafer production Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE) reactor at IntelliEPI IR, Inc. The Phase II goal includes achieving QE of at least 70% at 200K operation within MWIR band with spectral cutoff wavelength of 3 - 5 um. In the superlattice engineered structure, many detector properties are determined once epitaxial growth is completed. The technical approach will be to develop improved epitaxial stack design with a goal to dramatically improved detector properties such as detector QE and operating at high temperature. This approach is based on existing high performance GaSb-based type-II SLS detector technology, with novel design, development of MBE growth to implement the design, and fabrication and characterization of devices from the epi grown material. This Phase II effort will focus on FPA demonstration.