The performance of the current high speed near infrared HgCdTe sensors operating in fringe trackers, wavefront sensors and tip-tilt sensors is severely limited by the noise of the silicon readout interface circuit (ROIC), even if state-of-the-art CMOS designs are used. A major improvement can only be achieved by the amplification of the photoelectron signal directly at the point of absorption by means of avalanche gain inside the infrared pixel. Unlike silicon, HgCdTe offers noiseless avalanche gain. This has been verified with the LPE grown 320x256 pixel λ c =2.5 μm HgCdTe eAPD arrays from SELEX both on a prototype ROIC called SWALLOW and on a newly developed ROIC, specifically designed for AO applications, called SAPHIRA. The novel features of the new SAPHIRA ROIC, which has 32 parallel video channels operating at 5 MHz, will be described, together with the new high speed NGC data acquisition system. Performance results will be discussed for both ROICs. The LPE material on the SWALLOW prototype was excellent and allowed operation at an APD gain as high as 33. Unfortunately, the LPE material of the first devices on the SAPHIRA ROIC suffers from problems which are now understood. However, due to the excellent performance of the SAPHIRA ROIC even with the limitations of present HgCdTe material, it is possible with simple double correlated sampling to detect test patterns with signal levels of 1 electron. An outlook will be given on further developments of heterojunctions grown by MOVPE, which eventually may replace eAPD arrays grown by LPE.

Active systems, using a near-infrared pulse laser and a fast, gated detector, are now adopted for most long range imaging applications. This concept is often called laser-gated imaging (LGI) or burst-illumination LIDAR (BIL). The SELEX solid state detector is based on an array of HgCdTe avalanche photodiodes, and a custom-designed CMOS multiplexer to perform the fast gating and photon signal capture. This paper describes two recent developments. The first is aimed at reducing the size, weight, power and cost of steerable platforms which often have to contain a large number of electrooptic tools such as lasers, range finders, BIL, thermal imaging and visible cameras. A dual-mode infrared detector has been developed with the aim of shrinking the system to one camera. The detector can be switched to operate as a passive thermal imager, a laser-gated imager or a solar flux imager. The detector produces a sensitivity in the MW thermal band of 16-18mK and a sensitivity in the BIL mode as low as 10 photons rms, in other words close to the performance of dedicated imagers. A second development was to extend the current BIL capability to 3D. In complex scenes, with camouflage and concealment, the ability to generate 3D images provides a signal-to-clutter advantage. Also in airborne applications, especially, it is useful to have 3D information to provide agile, feedback control of the range gating in a dynamic environment. This report describes the development of the 3D detector and camera, and the results of field trials using a prototype system. INTRODUCTION TO LASER-GATED IMAGING AT SELEXThe benefits of laser-gated imaging (LGI) or burst-illumination LIDAR (BIL) have been established in the UK over the past 6 years in a large number of trials, encompassing ground-based, naval and airborne scenarios. The ability to perform detection, recognition, identification and intent over long ranges, day and night, is an essential modern requirement. Several factors give laser gated imaging a performance advantage. Firstly, a collimated, pulse laser can give instantaneous brightness levels far in excess of passive infrared emission levels even at extreme long range. The brightness levels allow the use of long focal length telescopes made from glass (because of the 1.55µm wavelength). Also at 1.55µm there is better optical resolution compared with the longer wavelengths of passive IR systems. It is therefore fairly straightforward to achieve resolution improvements of over an order of magnitude compared with standard thermal imaging. The temporal gating function can help to reduce clutter in the scene by extinguishing signals outside of the gate. Another advantage stems from the short laser pulse (typically 20ns wide) which has the effect of freezing the scene, including any own-platform jitter, and any atmospheric effects. There will be distortion from frame to frame but work at SELEX, Edinburgh has shown the images can be de-rotated and re-registered to restore stable images 1 .Previous papers on laser-gated imaging technology at ...

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SELEX Galileo Infrared Ltd has developed a range of 3 rd Generation infrared detectors based on HgCdTe grown by Metal Organic Vapour Phase Epitaxy (MOVPE) on low cost GaAs substrates. There have been four key development aims: reducing the cost especially for large arrays, extending the wavelength range, improving the operating temperature for lower power, size and weight cameras and increasing the functionality. Despite a 14% lattice mismatch between GaAs and HgCdTe MOVPE arrays show few symptoms of misfit dislocations even in longwave detectors. The key factors in the growth and device technology are described in this paper to explain at a scientific level the radiometric quality of MOVPE arrays. A feature of the past few years has been the increasingly sophisticated products that are emerging thanks to custom designed silicon readout devices. Three devices are described as examples: a multifunctional device that can operate as an active or passive imager with built-in range finder, a 3-side buttable megapixel array and an ultra-low noise device designed for scientific applications.