Development of Broadband Nanostructured Antireflection Coatings for Improved Infrared Focal Plane Arrays (IRFPA) Performance

The proposed Sequential Phase II SBIR program will focus on the design, development and demonstration of high quality nanostructured antireflection coatings for infrared, ultraviolet detectors and optics. The nanostructured coatings will be deposited on silicon(Si), Germanium (Ge), SiC. and other substrates such as CdZnTe. These high quality antireflection coatings wil be characterized in detail, including optical reflection and transmittance versus wavelength and performance characteristics as a function of incident angle of light. The performance of nanostructured antireflection coatings will also be tailored for for various detector and sensor applications including microbometer. In this program, antireflection coating designs will be developed for ultraviolet, near infrared (NIR), mid-wave- length infrared (MWIR), and long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) detectors and their associated optics. The Phase II sequential program will be further reducing the reflection loss to less than 1 percent. Phase II reporting shall include the nanostructured design’s scientific and technical merit and demonstrating the technology for a variety of Army IRFPA applications, while also addressing the overall business case viability for projected EO/IR sensors and imaging systems markets.