Pixel-less infrared imaging based on the integration of an <i>n</i>-type quantum-well infrared photodetector with a light-emitting diode

Dupont, Emmanuel; Liu, H. C.; Buchanan, M.; Wasilewski, Z. R.; St-Germain, Daniel; Chevrette, Paul C.

doi:10.1063/1.124442

Cited by 25 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Pixelless imaging based on the semiconductor up-conversion technique has attracted tremendous research effort and made great progress at near-infrared 19–21 and mid-infrared 22–24 region in past 20 years. This technique makes use of an entire large size of device cell to image directly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broadband THz to NIR up-converter for photon-type THz imaging

et al. 2019

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High performance terahertz imaging devices have drawn wide attention due to their significant application in healthcare, security of food and medicine, and nondestructive inspection, as well as national security applications. Here we demonstrate a broadband terahertz photon-type up-conversion imaging device, operating around the liquid helium temperature, based on the gallium arsenide homojunction interfacial workfunction internal photoemission (HIWIP)-detector-LED up-converter and silicon CCD. Such an imaging device achieves broadband response in 4.2–20 THz and can absorb the normal incident light. The peak responsivity is 0.5 AW −1 . The light emitting diode leads to a 72.5% external quantum efficiency improvement compared with the one widely used in conventional up-conversion devices. A peak up-conversion efficiency of 1.14 × 10 −2 is realized and the optimal noise equivalent power is 29.1 pWHz −1/2 . The up-conversion imaging for a 1000 K blackbody pin-hole is demonstrated. This work provides a different imaging scheme in the terahertz band.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Broadband THz to NIR up-converter for photon-type THz imaging

et al. 2019

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“…Further development of this concept 6-8 has led to efficient QWIP-LED pixelless imaging devices. [9][10][11] As shown theoretically, 8 in such imaging devices with QWIPs having sufficiently large number of QWs, the spreading of the photocurrent generated by a nonuniform radiation can be insignificant despite the equipotentiality of QWs and lateral ͑in the QW plane͒ diffusion of photoelectrons. The electron processes in the device QWIP portion can therefore result in relatively weak image smearing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…These devices usually have relatively narrow energy gap in the LED active layer. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12] However, the electrons propagated across the QWIP can be markedly heated by the electric field. If a sufficient portion of the hot electrons injected into the LED recombines with the emission of short-wavelength photons that are able to generate electrohole pairs in the device QWIP portion, the photonic breakdown can occur.…”

Section: Effect Of Photonic Breakdown On Conversion Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Photonic breakdown in up-conversion imaging devices based on the integration of quantum-well infrared photodetector and light-emitting diode

Ryzhii

Liu

2002

Journal of Applied Physics

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Articles you may be interested inNear-infrared to visible light optical upconversion by direct tandem integration of organic light-emitting diode and inorganic photodetector Appl. Phys. Lett. 90, 093108 (2007); 10.1063/1.2710003Far-infrared upconversion imaging devices: Imaging characteristics and quantum efficiency Pixelless infrared imaging utilizing a p -type quantum well infrared photodetector integrated with a light emitting diode Appl.

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“…Therefore, the serially integrated QWIP-LED device is a frequency up-converter, in which the NIR emission intensity is modulated by the mid- or far-infrared radiation shed on the device. The subsequent theoretical and experimental investigations on the QWIP-LED devices show that the lateral spreading of photocurrent is negligible 8 9 10 11 12 13 ; large area pixel-less FPAs based on QWIP-LEDs without obvious picture smearing and distortion effects were demonstrated by using a Si charge-coupled device (CCD) or CMOS camera to detect the converted NIR emission pattern 10 11 12 13 .…”

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confidence: 99%

Frequency Up-Conversion Photon-Type Terahertz Imager

Guo

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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Terahertz imaging has many important potential applications. Due to the failure of Si readout integrated circuits (ROICs) and the thermal mismatch between the photo-detector arrays and the ROICs at temperatures below 40 K, there are big technical challenges to construct terahertz photo-type focal plane arrays. In this work, we report pixel-less photo-type terahertz imagers based on the frequency up-conversion technique. The devices are composed of terahertz quantum-well photo-detectors (QWPs) and near-infrared (NIR) light emitting diodes (LEDs) which are grown in sequence on the same substrates using molecular beam epitaxy. In such an integrated QWP-LED device, photocurrent in the QWP drives the LED to emit NIR light. By optimizing the structural parameters of the QWP-LED, the QWP part and the LED part both work well. The maximum values of the internal and external energy up-conversion efficiencies are around 20% and 0.5%. A laser spot of a homemade terahertz quantum cascade laser is imaged by the QWP-LED together with a commercial Si camera. The pixel-less imaging results show that the image blurring induced by the transverse spreading of photocurrent is negligible. The demonstrated pixel-less imaging opens a new way to realize high performance terahertz imaging devices.Terahertz imaging has many potential applications, such as deep space exploration, imaging of biological tissues, mail screening and fingerprint identification, and situation awareness in fire disasters 1 . Terahertz focal plane arrays (FPAs) are key components for real time terahertz imaging systems 2 . Several different FPAs working in the terahertz regime have been developed in recent years based on the phase change of VO x , the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor (CMOS) technology, and the pyroelectric effect of LiTaO 3 crystal 2,3 . However, photo-type terahertz FPAs are still absent now. Compared to the thermal and other FPAs, photo-type FPAs have advantages of high detection sensitivity, short response time, large linear response range, and high damage threshold 2 .In mid-and far-infrared spectral regimes, FPAs are constructed by flip-chip bonding photo-detector arrays to commercial Si readout integrated circuits (ROICs) 2 . HgCdTe and quantum well infrared photo-detector (QWIP) FPAs are in the dominant position in mid-and far-infrared regimes 4 . Terahertz photo-detectors based on inter-subband transition in one-and three-dimensional quantum confined semiconductor structures were demonstrated in the past decade 2,4 . GaAs/(Al,Ga)As quantum well photo-detectors (QWPs) operating in terahertz band were realized by Liu et al. 5 . At temperatures below 30 K, background-limited infrared performance (BLIP) is reached for terahertz QWPs in 3.0-7.0 THz 6 . Due to the high quality of molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) grown GaAs/(Al,Ga)As multi-layer structure and the mature III-V fabrication processing technique, it is possible to fabricate terahertz QWPs with uniform detection performance in a large area scale. However, there are two t...

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Pixel-less infrared imaging based on the integration of an n-type quantum-well infrared photodetector with a light-emitting diode

Cited by 25 publications

References 9 publications

Broadband THz to NIR up-converter for photon-type THz imaging

Broadband THz to NIR up-converter for photon-type THz imaging

Photonic breakdown in up-conversion imaging devices based on the integration of quantum-well infrared photodetector and light-emitting diode

Frequency Up-Conversion Photon-Type Terahertz Imager

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