Advanced multi-function infrared detector with on-chip processing

Abstract

Modern electro-optical systems contain several components such as thermal imager, laser designator, laser range finder, etc. The dem and for com pact syste ms w ith l ow po wer co nsumption an d l ow cost can be ad dressed by i ncorporating some of the traditional system abilities into the IR detector. We present SNIR, a new type of detector, which consists of a Read O ut Int egrated C ircuit (R OIC) wi th adva nced o n-chip si gnal p rocessing. T he R OIC i s fl ip chi p-bonded to a 640×512 In Sb det ector ar ray of 1 5µm pi tch. S NIR di gital R OIC can b e ope rated i n either o ne of t he f ollowing f our different modes of operation. The first operation mode is standard thermal imaging, which has typical functionalities and performance of MWIR detector. The second operation mode is a dual-function mode that includes both standard thermal imaging and information on Asynchronous Laser Pulse Detection (ALPD) for each pixel. The detection probability of a laser pu lse is significantly in creased by i ntegrating a dedicated i n-pixel circu it fo r iden tifying a fast sig nal tem poral profile. Since each pixel has internal processing to ide ntify laser pulses, it is possible a lso to m easure the ela psed time between a trigg er and th e detection of a laser pulse. Th is yi elds a t hird m ode of operation i n which the detector i s synchronized t o a l aser an d becomes a Tw o-dimensional Laser R ange Finder (TLRF). T he forth operation m ode i s dedicated to Low Noise Imaging (LNIM) for the SWIR band, where the IR radiation signal is low. It can be used in both passive or active imaging. We review some of t he predicted and measured results for the different modes of operation, both at the detector level and at the system level.

A new large-format digital mid-wave IR detector

“…Additionally, the SNIR VGA format detector includes asynchronous laser pulse detection and the 2D laser range finder modes of operation. 7 In summary, we developed a large-format InSb photodetector with a ROIC fabricated using advanced high-resolution CMOS technology. In future work, we will continue to pursue smaller pixel, large arrays with increased functionality on chip.…”

“…We also developed other 15 m pitch InSb detector arrays with advanced 0:18 m CMOS ROICs. These include the smaller Pelican-D model, 6 which has a format of 640 512 (video graphics array, VGA) and full-frame readout rate of 380Hz.…”

Analytical model for the electro-thermal feedback effect in a microbolometer infrared focal plane array

“…[1][2][3] As the density of IRFPA has rapidly increased, several technical challenges, such as process technology, optical fill-factor, thermal isolation, and the thermal drift of their characteristics, have emerged. [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The accurate performance prediction of the high-density microbolometer IRFPA is also one of the emerging challenges. [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] In order to make a reasonable performance prediction of a highly optimized and high-density microbolometer IRFPA, the correct understanding of the electro-thermal phenomena that occur in a microbolometer IRFPA is essentially required.…”