No abstract

Studies of blooming effects in InSb focal plane array (FPA) detectors, are presented. Two blooming test devices are described, which have allowed to isolate optical, charge-diffusion and electronic blooming mechanisms. It is demonstrated that when a spurious illumination due to optical scattering is eliminated, then no extended blooming occurs, and only normal cross-talk mechanisms cause signal offset in elements adjacent to the hot target image. Cross-talk data are analyzed in terms of the signal decay versus element position, and the lateral carrier diffusion length is derived. Susceptibility of different diode structures to blooming, is discussed. It is also shown that an EPA signal processor may cause an extensive electronic blooming.

SCD Focal Plane Arrays (FPAs) are based on 320x256 or 640x512 InSb elements. In this paper we introduce the outstanding FPA based on the signal processor "blue fairy" (BF) that has been designed at SCD, and is now in standard production for the 320x256 format. The BF Focal Plane Processor (FPP) enables an integration capacity of more than 15Me -in Integrate While Read (IWR) mode, and more than 30 Me -in Integrate Then Read (ITR) mode. A combined mode for large dynamic range (e.g. >60Me -) with high sensitivity is also possible. Excellent linearity and residual nonuniformity is achieved, starting from an extremely low electron capacity up to 13Me -in IWR mode and 24Me -in ITR mode. Many other modes can be selected via a communication channel such as: ITR/IWR, one of seven different gains, one of seven different biases for the detector, variable window size and variable window location. Correlated Double Sampling (CDS) between frames and rows can be used for low frequency noise reduction, and/or any external electronic gain and offset drift corrections. All these features enable the integration of the BF FPA into a large variety of applications, with high performance in each application.