High-performance IR detectors at SCD present and future

For over 27 years, SCD has been manufacturing and developing a wide range of high performance infra-red detectors, designed to operate in either the mid-wave (MWIR) or the long-wave (LWIR) atmospheric windows. These detectors have been integrated successfully into many different types of system including missile seekers, Time Delay Integration scanning systems, Hand-Held cameras, Missile Warning Systems and many others. SCO's technology for the MWIR wavelength range is based on its well established 2-D arrays of InSb photodiodes. The arrays are flip-chip bonded to SCO's analogue or digital signal processors, all of which have been designed in-house. The 2-0 Focal Plane Array (FPA) detectors have a format of 320×256 elements for a 30μm pitch and 480×384 or 640×512 elements for a 20 μm pitch. Typical operating temperatures are around 77 - 85K. Five years ago SCD began to develop a new generation of MWIR detectors based on the epitaxial growth of Antimonide Based Compound Semiconductors (ABCS). This ABCS technology allows band-gap engineering of the detection material which enables higher operating temperatures and multi-spectral detection. This year SCD presented its first prototype FPA from this program, an InAlSb based detector operating at a temperature of 100 K. By the end of this year SCD will introduce the first prototype MWIR detector with a 640×512 element format and a pitch of 15 μm. For the LWIR wave-length range SCD manufactures both linear Hg _1-xCd_xTe (MCT) detectors with a line of 250 elements and Time Delay and Integration (TDI) detectors with formats of 288×4 and 480×6. Recently, SCD has demonstrated its first prototype un-cooled detector which is based on VOx technology and which has a format of 384×288 elements, a pitch of 25 μm and a typical NETD of 50mK at F/1. In this paper we describe the present technologies and products of SCD and the future evolution of our detectors for the MWIR and LWIR detection.