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Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

www.elsevier.com/locate/infrared

Infrared detectors: an overview


Antoni Rogalski *

Institute of Applied Physics, Military University of Technology, 2 Kaliskiego St., 00-908 Warsaw 49, Poland

Abstract

The paper presents progress in infrared (IR) detector technologies during 200 history of their development. Clas-
sication of two types of IR detectors (photon detectors and thermal detectors) is done on the basis of their principle of
operation. The overview of IR systems and detectors is presented. Also recent progress in dierent IR technologies is
described. Discussion is focused mainly on current and the most rapidly developing detectors: HgCdTe heterostructure
photodiodes, quantum well AlGaAs/GaAs photoresistors, and thermal detectors. The outlook for near-future trends in
IR technologies is also presented.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Photon detectors; Thermal detectors; Focal plane arrays; Two-colour detectors

1. Introduction in 1921 Seebeck discovered the thermoelectric


eect and soon thereafter demonstrated the rst
Looking back over the past 1000 years we no- thermocouple,
tice that infrared (IR) radiation itself was un- in 1829 Nobili constructed the rst thermopile
known until 200 years ago when Herschels by connecting a number of thermocouples in se-
experiment with thermometer was rst reported. ries [4],
He built a crude monochromator that used a in 1933 Melloni modied thermocouple design
thermometer as a detector so that he could mea- and used bismuth and antimony for it [5].
sure the distribution of energy in sunlight. In April
1800 he wrote [1]: Thermometer No. 1 rose 7 de- Langleys bolometer appeared in 1880 [6].
grees in 10 minutes by an exposure to the full red Langley used two thin ribbons of platinum foil,
coloured rays. I drew back the stand. . . thermometer connected so as to form two arms of a Wheatstone
No. 1 rose, in 16 minutes, 838 degrees when its centre bridge. Langley continued to develop his bolome-
was 1=2 inch out of the visible rays. ter for the next 20 years (400 times more sensitive
The early history of IR was reviewed about 40 than his rst eorts). His latest bolometer could
years ago in two well-known monographs [2,3]. detect the heat from a cow at a distance of a
The most important steps in development of IR quarter of mile. Thus, at the beginning the devel-
detectors are the following: opment of IR detectors was connected with ther-
mal detectors.
The photon detectors were developed in XX
*
Fax: +48-22-685-9109. century. The rst IR photoconductor was devel-
E-mail address: rogan@wat.waw.pl (A. Rogalski). oped by Case in 1917 [7]. In 1933 Kutzscher at

1350-4495/02/$ - see front matter  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 0 - 4 4 9 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 1 4 0 - 8
188 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Fig. 1. History of the development of IR detectors.

University of Berlin, discovered that lead sulphide class of detectors the radiation is absorbed within
(from natural galena found in Sardinia) was the material by interaction with electrons. The
photoconductive and had response to about 3 lm observed electrical output signal results from the
[8]. changed electronic energy distribution. The pho-
Many materials have been investigated in the ton detectors show a selective wavelength depen-
IR eld. Observing a history of the development of dence of the response per unit incident radiation
the IR detector technology, a simple theorem, after power. They exhibit both perfect signal-to-noise
Norton [9], can be stated: All physical phenomena performance and a very fast response. But to
in the range of about 0.11 eV can be proposed for achieve this, the photon detectors require cryo-
IR detectors. Among these eects are: thermo- genic cooling. Cooling requirements are the main
electric power (thermocouples), change in elec- obstacle to the more widespread use of IR systems
trical conductivity (bolometers), gas expansion based on semiconductor photodetectors making
(Golay cell), pyroelectricity (pyroelectric detec- them bulky, heavy, expensive and inconvenient to
tors), photon drag, Josephson eect (Joseph- use. Depending on the nature of interaction, the
son junctions, SQUIDs), internal emission (PtSi class of photon detectors is further sub-divided
Schottky barriers), fundamental absorption (in- into dierent types. The most important are: in-
trinsic photodetectors), impurity absorption (ex- trinsic detectors, extrinsic detectors, photoemissive
trinsic photodetectors), low-dimensional solids (metal silicide Schottky barriers) detectors, and
(superlattice (SL) and quantum well (QW) detec- quantum well detectors. Table 1 shows the com-
tors), dierent type of phase transitions, etc. parison of various IR detectors.
Fig. 1 gives approximate dates of signicant The second class of IR detectors is composed of
development eorts for the materials mentioned. thermal detectors. In a thermal detector the inci-
The years during World War II saw the origins of dent radiation is absorbed to change temperature
modern IR detector technology. Interest has cen- of the material, and the resultant change in some
tred mainly on the wavelengths of the two atmo- physical properties is used to generate an electrical
spheric windows 35 and 814 lm, though in output. The detector element is suspended on lags,
recent years there has been increasing interest in which are connected to the heat sink. Thermal
longer wavelengths stimulated by space applica- eects are generally wavelength independent; the
tions [10]. signal depends upon the radiant power (or its rate
of change) but not upon its spectral content. In
pyroelectric detectors a change in the internal
2. Classication of IR detectors spontaneous polarisation is measured, whereas in
the case of bolometers a change in the electrical
Progress in IR detector technology is connected resistance is measured. In contrast to photon de-
mainly to semiconductor IR detectors, which are tectors, the thermal detectors typically operate at
included in the class of photon detectors. In this room temperature. They are usually characterized
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 189

Table 1
Comparison of IR detectors (after Ref. [11])
Detector type Advantages Disadvantages
Thermal Light, rugged, reliable, and low cost Low detectivity at high frequency
Room temperature operation Slow response (ms order)

Photon
Intrinsic
IVVI Available low-gap materials Poor mechanical
Well studied Large permittivity
IIVI Easy band-gap tailoring Non-uniformity over large area
Well-developed theory and exp. High cost in growth and processing
Multicolour detectors
IIIV Good material and dopants Heteroepitaxy with large lattice mismatch
Advanced technology
Possible monolithic integration
Extrinsic Very long wavelength operation Extremely low temperature operation
Relatively simple technology
Free carriers Low-cost, high yields Low quantum eciency
Large and close packed 2D arrays Low temperature operation
Quantum wells
Type I Matured material growth Low quantum eciency
Good uniformity over large area Complicated design and growth
Multicolour detectors
Type II Low Auger recombination rate Complicated design and growth
Easy wavelength control Sensitive to the interfaces

by modest sensitivity and slow response but they best values of NEDT, below 0.1 K, could be
are cheap and easy to use. The greatest utility in reached because eective noise bandwidths < 100
IR technology has found bolometers, pyroelectric Hz can be achieved.
detectors and thermopiles. Uncooled, monolithic focal plane arrays (FPAs)
Up till the nineties, thermal detectors have been fabricated from thermal detectors may revolutio-
considerably less exploited in commercial and nise development of thermal imagers. Recently,
military systems in comparison with photon de- very encouraging results have been obtained with
tectors. The reason for this disparity is that ther- micromachined silicon bolometer [10,12] and py-
mal detectors are popularly believed to be rather roelectric detector arrays [10,13].
slow and insensitive in comparison with photon
detectors. As a result, the worldwide eort to de-
velop thermal detectors was extremely small rela-
tive to that of photon detector. In the last decade 3. Focal plane arrays
however, it has been shown that extremely good
imagery can be obtained from large thermal de- There are a number of architectures used in the
tector arrays operating uncooled at TV frame development of IR FPAs. In general, they may be
rates. The speed of thermal detectors is quite ad- classied as hybrid and monolithic. The central
equate for non-scanned imagers with two-dimen- design questions involve performance advantages
sional (2D) detectors. The moderate sensitivity of versus ultimate producibility. Each application
thermal detectors can be compensated by a large may favour a dierent approach depending on
number of elements in 2D electronically scanned the technical requirements, projected costs, and
arrays. With large arrays of thermal detectors the schedule.
190 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

In the monolithic approach, some of the mul- ogy with Schottky-barrier detectors is the only
tiplexing is done in the detector material itself than technology, which has matured to a level of
in an external readout circuit. The basic element of practical use.
a monolithic array is a metalinsulatorsemicon- Hybrid FPAs detectors and multiplexers are
ductor (MIS) structure as shown in Fig. 2(c). A fabricated on dierent substrates and mated with
MIS capacitor detects and integrates the IR-gen- each other by the ip-chip bonding (Fig. 3) or
erated photocurrent. Although eorts have been loophole interconnection. In this case we can op-
made to develop monolithic FPAs using narrow- timise the detector material and multiplexer inde-
gap semiconductors, silicon-based FPA technol- pendently. Other advantages of the hybrid FPAs

Fig. 2. Monolithic IR FPAs: (a) all-silicon; (b) heteroepitaxy-on-silicon; (c) non-silicon (e.g., HgCdTe CCD) (after Ref. [14]).

Fig. 3. Hybrid IR FPA with independently optimised signal detection and readout: (a) indium bump technique, (b) loophole tech-
nique.
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 191

are near 100% ll factor and increased signal- minimum of three transistors per pixel compared
processing area on the multiplexer chip. In the to one per memory cell. Consequently, whereas
ip-chip bonding, the detector array is typically various 64  64 FPAs were available in the early
connected by pressure contacts via indium bumps 1980s, several vendors are now producing mono-
to the silicon multiplex pads. The detector array lithic FPAs in the TV-compatible 1040  1040
can be illuminated from either the frontside or formats. Fig. 4 illustrates the trend of array size
backside (with photons passing through the trans- over the past 25 years and some projections of
parent detector array substrate). In general, the what will evolve in the coming decade. Rockwell
latter approach is most advantageous. In HgCdTe has developed the worlds largest HgCdTe short
hybrid FPAs, photovoltaic detectors are formed wavelength IR (SWIR) FPA for astronomy and
on thin HgCdTe epitaxial layer on transparent low-background applications. The format of the
CdTe or CdZnTe substrates. For HgCdTe ip- device is a hybrid 2048  2048 with a unit cell size
chip hybrid technology, the maximum chip size is of 18 lm  18 lm. Table 2 contains description
of the order of 10 mm square. In order to over- of representative IR FPAs that are commercially
come this problem, the technology is being devel- available as standard products and/or catalogue
oped with sapphire or silicon as the substrate of items from the major manufactures. Ten years
HgCdTe detectors. When using opaque materials, ago, high quality single element detectors often
substrates must be thinned to 1020 lm in order to were priced over $2000, but now, some current IR
obtain sucient quantum eciencies and reduce FPA production costs are less than $1 per detector
the crosstalk. and even greater reductions are expected in the
There is a large research activity directed to- near future.
wards 2D staring arrays detectors consisting of Two types of silicon addressing circuits have been
more than 106 elements. IR FPAs have nominally developed: CCDs and complementary metal-oxide-
the same growth rate as dynamic random access semiconductor (CMOS) switches. The photogener-
memory (RAM) integrated circuits (ICs) (it is ated carriers are rst integrated in the well formed
consequence of Moores Law, which predicts the by a photogate and subsequently transferred to
ability to double transistor integration on each IC slow (vertical) and fast (horizontal) CCD shift
about every 18 months) but lag behind in size by registers.
about 510 years. ROICs are somewhat analo- An attractive alternative to the CCD readout is
gous to dynamic RAMonly readouts require a coordinative addressing with CMOS switches. The

Fig. 4. Increase in array format size over the past 25 years and projections for the coming decade. PtSi, InSb, and HgCdTe have been
following the pace of dynamic RAM, oset by about a decade. QWIP detectors have been recently reported in sizes as large as
640  480 pixels (after Ref. [15]).
192 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Table 2
Representative IR FPAs oered by some major manufacturers
Manufacturer/web site Size/architec- Pixel size Detector material Spectral Operating tem- D kp
ture (lm) range (lm) perature (K) (cm Hz1=2 W1 )/
NETD (mK)
Raytheon/ 256  256/H 30  30 InSb 15.5 1077
www.raytheon.com 1024  1024/H 27  27 InSb 0.65.0 35
320  240/H 50  50 Si:As BIB 228 410
128  128/H 40  40 HgCdTe 911 80
256  256/H 30  30 HgCdTe 8.511 77100
320  240/M 48  48 VOx (bolometer) 814 300 50
328  245/H 35  35 Pyro (BST) 814 300 >50
Rockwell/Boeing/ 256  256/H 40  40 HgCdTe >15 77
www.boeing.com 640  480/H 27  27 HgCdTe >10 77
www.rsc.rockwell.com 225  256/H 40  40 HgCdTe 14.6 120 >10
640  480/H 27  27 HgCdTe 14.6 120 >25
2048  2048/H 18  18 HgCdTe 12.5 95120 > 1  1014
320  240/M 48  48 VOx (bolometer) 814 300 50
Mitsubishi/www.mits- 256  256/M 52  40 PtSi 35 77 0.036
ubishi-imaging.com 512  512/M 26  20 PtSi 35 77 0.033
1024  1024/M 17  17 PtSi 35 77 0.10

BAE Systems 256  256/H 30  30 HgCdTe 110 80


432  432/H HgCdTe 15 80
640  480/M 28  28 VOx (bolometer) 814 300 60
Sofradir/ 128  128/H 50  50 HgCdTe 7.710 80 1:1  1011 /10
Infrared.sofradir.com 128  128/H 50  50 HgCdTe 3.74.8 90 4:3  1011 /7
128  128/H 50  50 HgCdTe 2.54.2 195 7:5  1011 /36
320  240/H 30  30 HgCdTe 3.74.8 120 1:0  1012 /8
320  240/M 45  45 Amorphous Si 814 20 to 60 C 80
(bolometer)
Sarno/ 320  244/M 23  32 PtSi 15 77
www.sarno.com 640  480/M 24  24 PtSi 15 77
Eastman-Kodak/ 486  640/M 25  25 PtSi 15 77
www.kodak.com
Marconi/www. 128  128/H 50  50 HgCdTe 812 77
gec-marconi.com/ 384  288/H 30  30 HgCdTe 35 80 15
infra-red/ 256  128/H 56  56 Pyro (PST) 814 300 90
384  288/H 40  40 Pyro (PST) 814 300 130
AEG/www.aeg.com/ 256  256/M 24  24 PtSi 35 77 75
e_produkte.htm 486  640/M 24  24 PtSi 35 77 70
256  256/H 40  40 HgCdTe 810 80 20
640  512/H 24  24 HgCdTe 35 80 20
256  256/H 40  40 QWIP 810 60 10
640  512/H 24  24 QWIP 810 60 20
JPL/www.jpl.nasa.gow 128  128/H 50  50 QWP 15 (kc ) 45 30
256  256/H 38  38 QWIP 9 (kc ) 70 40
640  486/H 18  18 QWIP 9 (kc ) 70 36
Sensors Unlimited/ 128  128/H 60  60 InGaAs 0.91.7 300 >1013
www.sensorsinc.com 320  240/H 40  40 InGaAs 0.91.7 300 >1012
Hhybrid, Mmonolithic.
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 193

advantages of CMOS are that existing foundries. gap semiconductor alloys, HgCdTe is the only
Design rules of 0.25 lm are in production with one material covering the whole IR spectral
pre-production runs of the 0.18 lm design rules. range having nearly the same lattice parameter.
At present, CMOS with minimum feature 6 0.5 The dierence of lattice parameter between
lm is also enabling monolithic visible CMOS CdTe (Eg 1:5 eV) and Hg0:8 Cd0:2 Te (Eg 0:1
imagers. eV) is 0.2%. Replacing small fraction of Cd
with Zn or Te with Se can compensate the re-
sidual lattice mismatch. The independence of
4. Viewpoint on IR detector technologies lattice parameter on composition is a major ad-
vantage of HgCdTe over any other materials.
During the past four decades mercury cadmium
telluride (HgCdTe) has became the most im- Heterojunctions are helpful in achieving high
portant semiconductor for the middle and long performance in practice. For example, the narrow-
wavelength (k 330 lm) IR photodetectors. The gap HgCdTe that absorbs IR radiation can be
short wavelength region has been dominated by buried encapsulated in wider gap HgCdTe pre-
IIIV compounds (InGaAs, InAsSb, InGaSb). venting instabilities due to the weak HgTe bonds.
There have been numerous attempts to replace When background-photon noise is the domi-
HgCdTe with alternative materials. At present, nant noise mechanism, the detector is operating in
several other variable gap alloy systems are known an ideal mode, and is said to exhibit background
including closely related mercury alloys HgZnTe, limited performance (BLIP). BLIP temperature is
HgMnTe, lead tin tellurides and selenides, InAsSb, dened that the device is operating at a tempera-
IIIVI compounds with thallium and bismuth, ture at which the dark current equals the back-
free-carrier detectors and low-dimensional solids. ground photocurrent, given a eld of view (FOV),
The main motivations, behind the numerous and a background temperature. In Fig. 5, plots of
attempts to replace HgCdTe, are technological the calculated temperature required for BLIP op-
problems of this material. One of them is weak eration in 30 FOV, are shown as a function of
HgTe bond, which results in bulk and surface and cuto wavelength. We can see that the operat-
interface instabilities. Uniformity and yield are still ing temperature of bulk intrinsic IR detectors
issues. Nevertheless, HgCdTe remains the leading (HgCdTe and PbSnTe) is higher than for other
semiconductor for IR detectors. The most impor- types of photon detectors. HgCdTe detectors with
tant reasons for this are:

No one of the new materials oers fundamental


advantages over HgCdTe. While the gure of
merit, (a=G) (where a is the absorption coe-
cient and G is the thermal generation rate) [16],
of various narrow-gap semiconductors seems to
be very close to that of HgCdTe, the free-carrier
detectors and GaAs/AlGaAs superlattice de-
vices have several order of magnitude smaller
a=G.
HgCdTe exhibits extreme exibility, it can be
tailored for optimised detection at any region
of IR spectrum, dual and multicolour devices
can be easily constructed.
Fig. 5. Estimation of the temperature required for background
The present development of IR photodetec- limited operation of dierent types of photon detectors. For the
tors has been dominated by complex band-gap calculations FOV 30 and TB 300 K are assumed (after
heterostructures. Among various variable band- Ref. [17]).
194 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Fig. 6. Double layer planar heterostructure cross-section schematics for SWIR InGaAs (a) and HgCdTe (b) photodiodes.

BLIP operate with thermoelectric coolers in the low growth temperature techniques: metalorganic
MWIR range, but the LWIR detectors (8 6 kc 6 12 chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) and mo-
lm) operate at 100 K. HgCdTe photodiodes lecular beam epitaxy (MBE).
exhibit higher operating temperature compared to The baseline detector architecture for SWIR
extrinsic detectors, silicide Schottky barriers and InGaAs and HgCdTe is P -on-n device (symbol P
QWIPs. However, the cooling requirements for denotes wider gap). Fig. 6 shows the double layer
QWIPs with cuto wavelengths below 10 lm are heterostructure (DLPH) device cross-sections for
less stringent in comparison with extrinsic detec- both types of photodiodes. Apart from the above
tors and Schottky-barrier devices. described benets, incorporation of a buried nar-
Recently, more interest has been focused on pn row-band-gap active layer in the DLPH reduces
junction heterostructure photodiodes. In compar- tunnelling currents and increases the total dose
ison with heterostructures, homojunctions have radiation hardness, both of which are essential
a lower breakdown voltage and a large reverse detector attributes for remote sensing applications.
leakage current. Another aspect of photodiode The thickness of the base region should be opti-
design is the required bandwidth for high-speed mised for near unity quantum eciency and a low
operation. dark current. This is achieved with a base thick-
Photodiodes with their very low power dissi- ness (typically about 57 lm) slightly higher than
pation, easy multiplexing on focal plane silicon the inverse absorption coecient for single pass
chip and less stringent noise requirements for the devices. Low doping is benecial for a low thermal
readout devices and circuits, can be assembled in generation and high quantum eciency. Since the
2D arrays containing a very large number of ele- diusion length in absorbing region is typically
ments, limited only by existing technologies. longer than its thickness, any carriers generated in
Epitaxy is the preferable technique to obtain the base region can be collected giving rise to the
device-quality materials. Among the various epit- photocurrent.
axial techniques, liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) is the
most mature method. LPE growth must be carried 4.1. InGaAs photodiodes
out at relatively high growth temperature with
adherent interdiusion and resulting graded in- The need for high-speed, low-noise Inx Ga1x As
terfaces. Recent eorts are aimed mostly at (InGaAs) photodetectors for use in lightwave
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 195

communication systems operating in the 11.7 lm


wavelength region (x 0:53) is well established.
In0:53 Ga0:47 As alloy is lattice matched to the InP
substrate. Having lower dark current and noise
than indirect-band-gap germanium, the competing
near-IR material, the material is addressing both
entrenched applications including low light level
night vision and new applications such as remote
sensing, eye-safe range nding and process con-
trol [18]. By changing the alloy composition of
the InGaAs absorption layer, the photodetector
responsivity can be maximized at the desired
wavelength of the end user to enhance the signal-
to-noise ratio.
InGaAs-detector processing technology is sim-
ilar to that used with silicon, but the detector
fabrication is dierent. The InGaAs detectors
active material is deposited onto a substrate using Fig. 7. Room temperature detectivity of InGaAs photodiodes
chloride VPE or MOCVD techniques adjusted for with cuto wavelength at 1.6, 1.9, 2.2, and 2.6 lm, respectively.
thickness, background doping, and other require-
ments. Planar technology evolved from the older
mesa technology and at present is widely used due photodiodes have been available since the late f-
to its simple structure and processing as well as the ties and they are generally fabricated by impurity
high reliability and low cost (see Fig. 6(a)). diusion and ion implantation. Epitaxy is not
Standard In0:53 Ga0:47 As photodiodes have ra- used; instead, the standard manufacturing tech-
diative-limited room temperature detectivity of nique begins with bulk n-type single crystal wafers
1013 cm Hz1=2 W1 . With increasing cuto wave- with donor concentration about 1015 cm3 . Wim-
length, detectivity decreases, what is shown in Fig. mers et al. have presented the status of InSb
7. The highest quality InGaAs photodiodes have photodiode technology for a wide variety of linear
been grown by MOCVD [19]. Their performance and FPAs [21,22].
is comparable with HgCdTe photodiodes. Typical InSb photodiode RA product at 77 K is
Linear array formats of 256, 512 and 1024 ele- 2  106 X cm2 at zero bias and 5  106 X cm2 at
ments have been fabricated for environmental slight reverse biases of approximately 100 mV.
sensing from 0.8 to 2.6 lm. The size of pixels are This characteristics is benecial when the detector
dierent; from 30  30 lm2 (with spacing of 50 is used in the capacitive discharge mode. As ele-
lm), 25  500 lm2 to 13  500 lm2 (with spacing ment size decreases below 104 cm2 , some slight
of 25 lm). Sensors Unlimited oers 10  10  6 degradation in resistance due to surface leakage
cm line-scan cameras incorporating linear InGaAs occurs.
FPAs of up to 512 elements on a 50 lm pitch. A InSb photodiodes can also be operated in the
room temperature staring cameras are based on temperature range above 77 K. Of course, the RA
128  128 and 320  240 InGaAs FPAs. products degrade in this region. At 120 K, RA
products of 104 X cm2 are still achieved with slight
reverse bias, making BLIP operation possible. The
4.2. InSb photodiodes quantum eciency in InSb photodiodes optimised
for this temperature range remains unaected up
InSb material is far more mature than HgCdTe to 160 K. Detectivity increases with reduced
and good quality more than 7 cm diameter bulk background ux (narrow FOV and/or cold lter-
substrates are commercially available [20]. InSb ing) as illustrated in Fig. 8.
196 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Fig. 9. Representative spectral response data for HgCdTe


Fig. 8. Detectivity as a function of wavelength for an InSb photodiodes.
photodiode operating at 77 K (after Judson, Infrared Detectors
Catalog, 1999).
array on a Si substrate, rather than CdZnTe, has
emerged as a particularly promising approach
InSb photovoltaic detectors are widely used for to scale up wafer dimensions and achieve a cost-
ground-based IR astronomy and for applications eective production [24]. MBE oers unique ca-
aboard the Space Infrared Telescope Facility. pabilities in material and device engineering
Recently, impressive progress has been made in the including the lowest growth temperature, super-
performance of InSb hybrid FPAs. An array size lattice growth and potential for the most sophis-
of 1024  1024 is possible because the InSb de- ticated composition and doping proles. The
tector material is thinned to <10 lm (after surface growth temperature is less than 200 C for MBE
passivation and hybridisation to a readout chip) but around 350 C for MOCVD, making it more
which allows it to accommodate the InSb/silicon dicult to control the p-type doping in the
thermal mismatch [23]. Linear array formats of MOCVD due to the formation of Hg vacancies.
64, 128 and 256 elements are also produced with Dierent HgCdTe photodiode architectures
frontside-illuminated detectors for both high- have been fabricated that are compatible with
background and astronomy applications. Element backside and frontside-illuminated hybrid FPA
sizes depend on device format and range from technology [18,25]. The fabrication of HgCdTe
20  20 to 200  200 lm. photodiodes was usually based on the most com-
The cryogenically cooled InSb and HgCdTe mon n p and P n DLHJ structure. In these
arrays have comparable array size and pixel yield photodiodes the base p-type layers (or n-type
at MWIR spectral band. However, wavelength layers) are sandwiched between CdZnTe substrate
tunability and high quantum eciency have made and high-doped (in n p structures) or wider-gap
HgCdTe the preferred material. (in P n structure) regions. Due to backside illu-
mination (through CdZnTe substrate) and internal
4.3. HgCdTe photodiodes electric elds (which are blocking for minority
carriers), inuence of surface recombinations on
HgCdTe photodiodes are available to cover the the photodiodes performance is eliminated. Both
spectral range from 1 to 20 lm. Fig. 9 illustrates optical and thermal generations are suppressed in
representative spectral response from photodiodes. the n -region due to the BursteinMoss eect and
Spectral cuto can be tailored by adjusting the in the P -region due to wide gap. The inuence of
HgCdTe alloy composition. surface recombination is also prevented by the use
Epitaxial techniques are preferred technique to of suitable passivation. Passivation of HgCdTe
obtain device-quality HgCdTe material for IR has been done by several techniques which com-
devices. Epitaxial growth of the HgCdTe detector prehensive review was given by Nemirovsky and
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 197

Bahir [26]. Recently, however, most laboratories


have been using CdTe or CdZnTe (deposited by
MBE, MOCVD, sputtering and e-beam evapora-
tion) for photodiode passivation [27]. For exam-
ple; the important element of the DLHJ structure
are an In-doped (Nd  1015 cm3 ) HgCdTe ab-
sorber layer with a wider band-gap cap layer
grown by LPE (MBE or MOCVD), arsenic diu-
sion (or implantation; Na  1018 cm3 ), a passiva-
tion layer, metal contacts to the diode, and indium
bumps for mating to the readout IC multiplexer.
It appears, that for the lowest doping levels,
achievable in controllable manner in the base re-
gions of photodiodes (Na 5  1015 cm3 for n p
structure, and Nd 5  1014 cm3 for p n struc-
ture), the performance of both types of photodi-
odes is comparable for a given cuto wavelength
and temperature [28].
The dependence of the base region diusion
limited Ro A product on the long wavelength cuto
for P-on-n LWIR HgCdTe photodiodes at dier-
ent temperatures is shown in Fig. 10. This gure
also includes the experimental data reported by
many authors for DLHJ p-on-n structures. The Fig. 10. Dependence of the Ro A product on the long wave-
upper experimental data are situated about a half length cuto for LWIR p n HgCdTe photodiodes at tem-
of an order below ultimate theoretical predictions. peratures 6 77 K. The solid lines are calculated assuming that
the performance of photodiodes are due to thermal generation
With a lowering of the operation temperature of governed by the Auger mechanism in the base n-type region of
photodiodes, the discrepancy between the theo- photodiodes with t 10 lm and Nd 5  1014 cm3 . The ex-
retical curves and experimental data increases, perimental values are taken from dierent papers.
which is due to additional currents in the junctions
(such as tunnelling current or surface leakage lm) appear to be diusion-limited down to 110
current) that are not considered. Photodiodes with K. Below this temperature the experimental data
lower performance usually contain metallurgical obscure the probable onset of generation-recom-
defects such as dislocation clusters and loops, pin bination and/or tunnelling current limitations.
holes, striations, Te inclusions, and heavy terrac- Up to the present, photovoltaic HgCdTe FPAs
ing. It should be noticed that the upper experi- have been mainly based on p-type material. Linear
mental data in very long wavelength range (above (240, 288, 480, and 960 elements), 2D scanning
14 lm) at lower temperature (40 K) coincides very arrays with time delay and integration (TDI), and
well with theoretical predictions. 2D staring formats from 32  32 up to 2048 
Fig. 11 presents a comprehensive comparison of 2048 have been made [18]. Pixel sizes ranging from
the performance of MWIR P-on-n HgCdTe pho- 18 lm square to over 1 mm have been demon-
todiodes on CdZnTe and Si substrates for cuto strated. The best results have been obtained using
wavelengths ranging from 3.5 to 5 lm. The devices hybrid architecture.
with highest performance are processed from
MBE-grown epilayers on bulk CdZnTe substrates. 4.4. Photoemissive PtSi Schottky-barrier detectors
The shorter cuto devices (with kc  3 lm) are
diusion-limited down to at least 125 K. The de- The most popular Schottky-barrier detector
vices with longer cuto wavelength (with kc  5 is the PtSi detector which can be used for the
198 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Most of the reported Schottky-barrier FPAs


have the interline transfer CCD architecture.
Using a 1.2 lm charge sweep device technology, a
large ll factor of 71% was achieved with a
26  20 lm2 pixel in the 512  512 monolithic
structure [31]. The noise equivalent temperature
dierence (NETD) was estimated as 0.033 K with
f =1:2 optics at 300 K. The 1040  1040 element
CSD FPA has the smallest pixel size (17  17 lm2 )
among 2D IR FPAs. Current PtSi Schottky-bar-
rier FPAs are mainly manufactured in 150 mm
wafer process lines with around 1 lm lithography
technologies; the most advanced Si technology
oers 200 mm wafers process with 0.25 mm design
rules. However, the performance of monolithic
PtSi Schottky-barrier FPAs has reached a plateau,
Fig. 11. Comparison of 125 K detector performance for and a slow progress from now on is expected.
MWIR HgCdTe photodiodes grown on Si and CdZnTe by
Various semiconductor photoemissive struc-
MBE and photodiodes grown on CdZnTe by LPE. Each data
point represents an array-median Ro A product measured at 125 tures for far IR detection have been discussed by
K (after Ref. [29]). Perera [32].

4.5. Extrinsic photoconductors

detection in the 35 lm spectral range [30,31]. Extrinsic photoresistors are used in a wide
Radiation is transmitted through the p-type silicon range of the IR spectrum extending from a few lm
and is absorbed in the metal PtSi (not in the to 300 lm. They are the principal detectors op-
semiconductor), producing hot holes which are erating in the range k > 20 lm [33]. Detectors
then emitted over the potential barrier into the based on silicon and germanium have found the
silicon, leaving the silicide charged negatively. widest application as compared with extrinsic
Negative charge of silicide is transferred to a CCD photodetectors on other materials. Si has several
by the direct charge injection method. advantages over Ge; for example, three orders of
The eective quantum eciency in the 35 lm magnitude higher impurity solubilities are attain-
atmospheric window is very low, of the order of able, hence thinner detectors with better spatial
1%, but useful sensitivity is obtained by means of resolution can be fabricated from silicon. Si has
near full frame integration in area arrays. The lower dielectric constant than Ge, and the related
quantum eciency has been improved by thin- device technology of Si has now been more thor-
ning PtSi lm and implementation of an opti- oughly developed, including contacting methods,
cal cavity. Due to very low quantum eciency, surface passivation and mature MOS and CCD
the operating temperature of Schottky-barrier technologies. Moreover, Si detectors are charac-
photoemissive detectors is lower than another terized by superior hardness in nuclear radiation
types of IR photon detectors (see Fig. 5). environments. Fig. 12 illustrates the spectral re-
Schottky photoemission is independent of such sponse for several extrinsic detectors.
factors as semiconductor doping, minority carrier The availability of a highly developed silicon
lifetime, and alloy composition, and, as a result of MOS technology facilities the integration of large
this, has spatial uniformity characteristics that are detector arrays with charge-transfer devices for
far superior to those of other detector technolo- readout and signal processing. The well-estab-
gies. Uniformity is only limited by the geometric lished technology also helps in the manufacturing
denition of the detectors. of uniform detector arrays and the formation of
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 199

in Anaheim [38]. Hybrid FPAs with Si:As BIB


detectors operating in 410 K temperature range
have been optimised for low, moderate, and high
IR backgrounds. The 256  256 format with 30
lm pixels and 240  320 format with 50 lm pixels
are available for low- and high-background ap-
plications, respectively. Antimony-doped silicon
(Si:Sb) arrays and 128  128 pixel Si:Sb hybrid
FPAs having response to wavelengths >40 lm
have been also demonstrated, primarily for use at
low and moderate backgrounds. Germanium BIB
devices have been developed on an experimental
Fig. 12. Examples of extrinsic silicon detector spectral re- basis, but they have not been reported in large 2D
sponse. Shown are Si:In, Si:Ga, and Si:As bulk detectors and a array formats yet.
Si:As BIB (after Ref. [34]).

4.6. GaAs/AlGaAs QWIPs

low-noise contacts. Although the potential of large Among the dierent types of quantum well IR
extrinsic silicon FPAs for terrestrial applications photodetectors (QWIPs), technology of the GaAs/
has been examined, interest has declined in favour AlGaAs multiple quantum well detectors is the
of HgCdTe and InSb with their more convenient most mature [39,40].
operating temperatures. Strong interest in doped QWIP technology is based on the well-devel-
silicon continues for space applications, particu- oped A3 B5 material system, which has a large
larly in low-background ux and for wavelengths industrial base with a number of military and
from 13 to 20 lm, where compositional control is commercial applications. QWIP cannot compete
dicult for HgCdTe. The shallower impurity en- with HgCdTe photodiode as the single device es-
ergies in germanium allow detectors with spectral pecially at higher temperature operation (>70 K)
response up to beyond 100 lm wavelength and due to fundamental limitations associated with
major interest still exists in extrinsic germanium intersubband transitions [17]. However, the ad-
for wavelengths beyond about 20 lm. vantage of HgCdTe is less distinct in tempera-
To maximize the quantum eciency and de- ture range below 50 K due to problems involved
tectivity of extrinsic photoconductors, the doping in a HgCdTe material (p-type doping, Shockley
level should be as high as possible. This idea is Read recombination, trap-assisted tunnelling,
realized in blocked impurity band (BIB) devices. surface and interface instabilities). Even though
The longer spectral response of the BIB Si:As de- that QWIP is a photoconductor, several its prop-
vice compared with the bulk Si:As device (see Fig. erties such as high impedance, fast response
12) is due to the higher doping level in the former time, long integration time, and low power con-
that reduces the binding energy of an electron. For sumption, well comply requirements of large FPAs
a detailed analysis of the BIB detector see Szmu- fabrication. Due to the high material quality at
lowicz and Madarsz [35]. low temperature, QWIP has potential advantages
BIB devices made from either doped silicon or over HgCdTe for VLWIR FPA applications in
doped germanium are sensitive in the IR wave- terms of the array size, uniformity, yield and cost
length range of 2 and 220 lm. BIB devices in large of the systems.
staring array formats are now becoming com- Fig. 13 shows two detector congurations used
mercially available. The best results have been in fabrication of QWIP FPAs. In the bound-to-
achieved to date for Si:As BIB hybrid FPAs pro- continuum QWIP the photoelectron can escape
duced by Hughes Technology Center in Carlsbad from the quantum well to the continuum transport
[36,37] and Rockwell International Science Center states without being required to tunnel through the
200 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Fig. 13. Band diagram of demonstrated QWIP structures: (a)


bound-to-extended and (b) bound-to-miniband. Three mecha-
nisms creating dark current are also shown in (a): ground-state
sequential tunnelling (1), intermediate thermally assisted tun-
nelling (2), and thermionic emission (3). The grey indicates
extended states through which current ows.

Fig. 14. Detectivity versus cuto wavelength for n-doped


barrier. As a result, the voltage bias required to GaAs/AlGaAs QWIPs at temperatures 6 77 K. The solid lines
eciently collect the photoelectrons can be re- are theoretically calculated. The experimental data are taken
duced dramatically, thereby lowering the dark from dierent papers (after Ref. [41]).
current. It appears that the dark current decreases
signicantly when the rst excited state is dropped
from the continuum to the well top without sac- in wide range of cuto wavelength 8 6 kc 6 19 lm
ricing the responsivity. and temperature 35 6 T 6 77 K has been obtained,
In a miniband transport QWIP (see Fig. 13(b)), considering the samples having dierent doping,
IR radiation is absorbed in the doped quantum dierent methods of crystal growth, dierent spec-
wells, exciting an electron into the miniband and tral widths, dierent excited states, and even in one
transporting it in the miniband until it is collected case a dierent materials system (InGaAs).
or recaptured into another quantum well. The A key factor in QWIP FPA performance is
miniband QWIPs show lower photoconductive the light-coupling scheme. A distinct feature of
gain than bound-to-continuum QWIPs because the QWIPs is that the optical absorption strength is
photoexcited electron transport occurs in the mini- proportional to an incident photons electric-eld
band where electrons have to transport through polarisation component normal to the quantum
many thin heterobarriers resulting in a lower mo- wells. For imaging, it is necessary to be able to
bility. couple light uniformly to 2D arrays of these de-
Rogalski [41] has used simple analytical ex- tectors, so a diraction grating or other similar
pressions for detector parameters described by structure is typically fabricated on one side of the
Andersson [42]. Fig. 14 shows the dependence of detectors to redirect a normally incident photon
detectivity on the long wavelength cuto for n-type into propagation angles more favourable for ab-
GaAs/AlGaAs QWIPs at dierent temperatures. sorption. The pixels of 2D arrays are thinned to
The satisfactory agreement with experimental data about 5 lm in thickness. The thinning traps dif-
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 201

fracted light inside the illuminated pixels, increas-


ing responsivity and eliminating crosstalk. The
thinning also allows the detector array to stretch
and accommodate the thermal expansion mis-
match with the Si ROIC.
Gunapala and co-workers at Jet Propulsion
Laboratory (JPL) demonstrated a 256  256
QWIP FPA in an Amber hand-held camera. The Fig. 15. Bridge structure of Honeywell microbolometer (after
current state of the art for QWIP FPA size has Ref. [47]).
been 640  480 recently demonstrated by JPL
[43,44] and Lockheed Martin [45]. The measured
mean NEDT of the QWIP camera was 36 mK at for single element bolometer and about 2% for
an operating temperature of T 70 K at 300 K FPA.
background [44]. The nal microbolometer pixel structure is
shown in Fig. 15. The microbolometer consists of
4.7. Thermal detectors a 0.5 lm thick bridge of Si3 N4 suspended about 2
lm above the underlying silicon substrate. The use
IR semiconductor imagers use cryogenic or of a vacuum gap of 2.5 lm, together with a
thermoelectric coolers, complex IR optics, and quarter wave resonant cavity between the bolo-
expensive sensor materials. Typical costs of cryo- meter and the underlying substrate, can produce a
genically cooled imagers of around $50 000 restrict reector for wavelengths near 10 lm. The bridge is
their installation to critical military applications supported by two narrow legs of Si3 N4 . The Si3 N4
allowing conducting of operations in complete legs provide the thermal isolation between the
darkness. Very encouraging results have been microbolometer and the heat-sink readout sub-
obtained with micromachined silicon bolometer strate and support conductive lms for electrical
arrays and pyroelectric detector arrays. Several connection. A bipolar input amplier is normally
countries have demonstrated imagers with NEDT required, and this can be obtained with biCMOS
of 100 mK or better, and the cost of simple systems processing technology. Encapsulated in the centre
is sometimes below $10 000. It is expected that of the Si3 N4 bridge is a thin layer (500 A ) of
high-performance imager system costs will be re- polycrystalline VOx .
duced to less than $1000 [46] and above IR cam- Honeywell has licensed this technology to sev-
eras will become widely available in the near eral companies for the development and produc-
future. Although developed for military applica- tion of uncooled FPAs for commercial and
tions, low-cost IR imagers are used in non-military military systems. At present, the compact 320 
applications such as: drivers aid, aircraft aid, in- 240 microbolometer cameras are produced by
dustrial process monitoring, community services, Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin in the
reghting, portable mine detection, night vision, United States. The US government allowed these
border surveillance, law enforcement, search and manufactures to sell their devices to foreign
rescue, etc. countries, but not to divulge manufacturing tech-
nologies. In recent years, several countries, in-
4.7.1. Micromachined silicon bolometers cluding the United Kingdom, Japan, Korea, and
The most popular thermistor material used in France have picked up the ball, determined to
fabrication of the micromachined silicon bolome- develop their own uncooled imaging systems. As a
ters is vanadium dioxide, VO2 . From the point of result, although the US has a signicant lead, some
view of IR imaging application, probably the of the most exciting and promising developments
most important property of VO2 is its high nega- for low-cost uncooled IR systems may come from
tive temperature coecient of resistance (TCR) at non-US companies, e.g., microbolometr FPAs
ambient temperature, which exceeds 4% per degree with series pn junction elaborated by Mitsubishi
202 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

Electric [48]. This approach is unique, based on an


all-silicon version of microbolometer.
The 240  320 arrays of 50 lm microbolome-
ters are fabricated on industry-standard wafer (4
in. diameter) complete with monolithic readout
circuits integrated into underlying silicon. Radford
et al. [49] have reported a 240  320 pixel array
with 50 lm square vanadium oxide pixels, for
which the average NETD (f =1 optics) was 8.6 mK.
Larger arrays size was described by Altman and
colleagues at Lockheed Martin [50]; they reported Fig. 16. BST dielectric bolometer pixel (after Ref. [31]).
a 640  480 FPA with 28  28 m2 pixels with
NETD (f =1 optics) of about 60 mK.
At present, several research programmes are employing these arrays are in mass production, no
focused towards enhancement of performance hybrid technology advances are foreseen. The
level in excess of 109 cm Hz1=2 W1 . It is antici- reason is that the thermal conductance of the
pated that new materials will form the basis of the bump bonds is so high that the array NETD (f =1
next generation of semiconductor lm bolome- optics) is limited to about 50 mK. Pyroelectric
ters. The most promising material appears to be array technology therefore is moving toward
amorphous silicon [51]. monolithic silicon microstructure technology. The
monolithic process should have fewer steps and
4.7.2. Pyroelectric detectors shorter cycle time. Most ferroelectrics tend to lose
The imaging systems based on pyroelectric ar- their interesting properties as the thickness is re-
rays, usually need to be operated with optical duced. However, some ferroelectric materials seem
modulators which chop or defocus the incoming to maintain their properties better than others.
radiation. This may be an important limitation for This seems particularly true for lead titanate
many applications in which chopperless operation (PbTiO3 ) and related materials, whereas BST, the
is highly desirable (e.g., guided munitions). Hith- material used in hybrid detectors, does not hold its
erto, most of the ferroelectric detectors have been properties well in thin-lm form. Various tech-
operated well-below Curie temperature TC , where niques for the deposition of thin ferroelectric lms
the polarisation is not aected by changes in am- have been investigated, including radio frequency
bient temperature. It is, however, possible to op- magnetron sputtering, dual ion beam sputtering,
erate ferroelectrics at or above TC , with an applied solgel processing, and laser ablation.
bias eld, in the mode of a dielectric bolometer.
Several materials have been examined in di-
electric bolometer mode. Barium strontium titan- 5. Dual-band IR focal plane arrays
ate (BST) ceramic is a relatively well-behaved
material with a very high permittivity. Texas in- Multicolour capabilities are highly desirable for
struments (TI) has improved the performance of advance IR systems. Systems that gather data in
pyroelectric FPAs using a bias voltage applied to separate IR spectral bands can discriminate both
maintain and optimise the pyroelectric eect near absolute temperature and unique signatures of
the phase transition [52]. Fig. 16 shows details of objects in the scene. By providing this new di-
the completed pyroelectric detector device struc- mension of contrast, multiband detection also en-
ture. For the United Kingdom array programme ables advanced colour processing algorithms to
lead scandium tantalate (PST) material has been further improve sensitivity above that of single-
chosen [53]. colour devices. Currently, multispectral systems
Although many applications for this hybrid rely on cumbersome imaging techniques that either
array technology have been identied, and imagers disperse the optical signal across multiple IR FPAs
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 203

or use a lter wheel to spectrally discriminate the consist of back-to-back photovoltaic pn junc-
image focused on single FPA. Consequently, these tions. This device architecture is realised by plac-
approaches are expensive in terms of size, com- ing a longer wavelength HgCdTe photodiode
plexity, and cooling requirements. Both HgCdTe simply behind shorter wavelength photodiode.
photodiodes and QWIPs oer the multicolour ca- Also quaternary device structure is used [60].
pability in the MWIR and LWIR range. Both sequential-mode and simultaneous mode
Considerable progress has been recently dem- detectors are fabricated from the multilayer ma-
onstrated in multispectral HgCdTe detectors em- terials. The mode of detection is determined by the
ploying MBE and MOCVD for the growth of fabrication process. Figs. 17 and 18 show the ele-
variety devices [5461]. Also QWIPs technology ments of arrays of two-colour photovoltaic unit
demonstrates considerably progress in fabrication cells in both modes. The sequential-mode detector
of multicolour FPAs [40,44,6266]. Devices for the has a single indium bump per unit cell that permits
sequential and simultaneous detection of two clo- sequential bias selectivity of the spectral bands
sely spaced sub-bands in the MWIR and LWIR associated with operating tandem photodiodes.
radiation have been demonstrated. The problems with the bias-selectable device are
the following: its construction does not allow in-
5.1. Dual-band HgCdTe FPAs dependent selection of the optimum bias voltage
for each photodiode, and there can be substantial
The two-colour detector arrays are usually medium wavelength crosstalk in the long wave-
based upon an nPN HgCdTe triple layer het- length detector. To overcome the problems of the
erojunction (TLHJ) design. The TLHJ detectors bias-selectable device, the independently accessed

Fig. 17. Cross-section of integrated two-colour detectors in an nPN layer structure for sequential operating mode.

Fig. 18. Cross-section of integrated two-colour detectors in an nPN layer structure for simultaneous operating mode.
204 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

back-to-back photodiode dual-band detectors have


been proposed. The simultaneous mode detector
employs an additional electrical contact to the
shared-type centre layer so that each junction can
be accessed independently with both signal chan-
nels integrated simultaneously. Longwave band ll
factor is reduced from that of the midwave, since
some junction area is sacriced to provide contact
to the buried cap layer, and spatial coincidence is Fig. 20. Two-colour simultaneous unipolar architecture (after
altered. Ref. [61]).
Critical step in device formation is connected
with in situ doped p-type As-doped layer with grown on top. To prevent diusion of carriers
good structural and electrical properties to prevent between two bands, a wide-band-gap 1 lm thick
internal gain from generating spectral crosstalk. layer separates these absorbing layers. The diodes
The band-gap engineering eort consists of in- are formed by implanting arsenic as a p-type do-
creasing the CdTe mole fraction and the eective pant and activating with an anneal giving unipolar
thickness of the p-type layer to suppress out-o- operation for both bands. The band 2 implanted
band carriers from being collected at the terminal. area is a concentric ring around the band 1 dimple.
Fig. 19 shows examples of spectral response Because the lateral carrier diusion length is larger
from MWIR/MWIR, MWIR/LWIR, and LWIR/ than the pixel pitch in the MWIR material and the
LWIR two-colour devices. band 1 junction is small, the pixel is isolated by dry
Fill factors of 128  128 MWIR/MWIR FPAs etching a trench around each pixel to reduce car-
as high as 80% were achieved by using a single rier crosstalk. The entire structure is capped with a
mesa structure to accommodate the two indium slightly wider band-gap layer to reduce surface
bump contacts required for each unit cell with 50 recombination and simplify passivation. Two-col-
lm size [9]. The NEDT for both bands was below our 128  128 FPAs with low-1013 cm2 s1 back-
25 mK and imagery was acquired at temperatures ground limited detectivity performance have been
as high as 180 K with no visible degradation in obtained for MWIR (35 lm) devices at T < 130
image quality. The camera used for these mea- K and for LWIR (810 lm) devices at T  80 K.
surements had a 50 mm, f =2:3 lens.
Recently, Rockwell and Boeing have extended a 5.2. Dual-band QWIP FPAs
single-colour DLHJ planar technology to two-
colour architecture [61]. A cross-section of a typi- Device capable of simultaneously detecting two
cal backside illuminated pixel is shown in Fig. 20. separate wavelengths can be fabricated by vertical
The band 1 absorber (shorter wavelength) is grown stacking of the dierent QWIP layers during epit-
rst, with the band 2 absorber (longer wavelength) axial growth (see Fig. 21). Separate bias voltages

Fig. 19. Spectral response curves for two-colour HgCdTe detectors in various dual-band combinations of spectral bands (after Ref.
[9]).
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 205

rays use 2D grating, which is very wavelength


dependent, and eciency gets lower when the pixel
size gets smaller. Lockheed Martin has used rect-
angular and rotated rectangular 2D gratings for
their two-colour LW/LW FPAs. Although ran-
dom reectors have achieved relatively high quan-
tum eciencies with large test device structure, it is
not possible to achieve the similar high quantum
eciencies with random reectors on small FPA
pixels due to the reduced width-to-height aspect
rations. In addition, it is dicult to fabricate
random reectors for shorter wavelength detectors
relative to long wavelength detectors due to the
Fig. 21. Structure of two-colour stacked QWIP (after Ref. fact that feature sizes of random reectors are
[63]).
linearly proportional to the peak wavelength of the
detectors. As a result, the quantum eciency be-
can be applied to each QWIP simultaneously via comes a more dicult issue for QWIP multicolour
the doped contact layers that separate the multiple FPA than for single colour.
quantum well detector heterostructures. Two-colour detectors that cover both MWIR
Typical operating temperature for QWIP de- and LWIR atmospheric windows are especially
tectors is in the region of 40100 K. The bias important in many applications. To cover MWIR
across each QWIP can be adjusted separately, al- range a strained layer InGaAs/AlGaAs material
though it is desirable to apply the same bias to system is used. InGaAs in MWIR stack produces
both colours. As shown in Fig. 22, the responsivity high in-plane compressive stain which enhances
of both QWIPs is around 300350 mA/W at a the responsivity [67]. The MWIR/LWIR FPAs
temperature 40 K and at an operating bias of 1.5 fabricated by Sanders consist of an 8.6 lm GaAs/
lm applied to common contact. It appears that the AlGaAs QWIP on top of 4.7 lm strained InGaAs/
complex two-colour processing has not compro- GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The fabrication
mised the electrical and optical quality of either process allowed ll factors of 85% and 80% for the
colour in the two-colour device. MW and LW detectors. The rst FPAs with this
A key factor in QWIP FPA performance is the conguration had an operability in excess of 97%,
light-coupling scheme. Dierent light-coupling and NETD value better 35 mK.
mechanisms are used in QWIPs. Most QWIP ar- Recently, Gunapala et al. [64] have demon-
strated the rst 89 and 1415 lm two-colour
imaging camera based on a 640  486 dual-band
QWIP FPA, which can be processed with dual or
triple contacts to access the CMOS readout mul-
tiplexer. Single indium bump per pixel is usable
only in the case of interlace readout scheme (i.e.,
odd rows for one colour and the even rows for the
other colour) which uses an existing single-colour
CMOS readout multiplexer. However, the disad-
vantage is that it does not provide a full ll factor
for both wavelength bands.
The device structure, shown in Fig. 23, consists
of a 30 period stack (500 A AlGaAs barrier and a
Fig. 22. Typical responsivity spectra at 40 K and a common
bias of 1.5 V, recorded simultaneously for two QWIPs in the

60 A GaAs well) of very LWIR (VLWIR) struc-
same pixel (after Ref. [63]). ture and a second 18 period stack (500 A  AlGaAs
206 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

independently couple the 89 and 1415 lm radi-


ation into detector pixels in even and odd rows of
the FPAs. The top 0.7 lm thick GaAs cap layer
was used to fabricate the light-coupling 2D peri-
odic gratings for 89 lm detector pixels, whereas
the light-coupling 2D periodic gratings of the 14
15 lm detector pixels were fabricated through
LWIR MQW layers. In such a way, this grating
scheme short circuited all 89 lm sensitive detec-
tors in all odd rows of the FPAs. The FPA was
Fig. 23. Conduction band diagram of the LWIR and VLWIR back-illuminated through the at thinned sub-
two-colour detector (after Ref. [64]). strate membrane (1000 A ). Very thin substrate
adapts the thermal expansion and contraction co-
ecient of the silicon readout multiplexer, com-
barrier and a 40 A GaAs well) of LWIR structure pletely eliminates the thermal mismatch problem
separated by a heavily doped 0.5 lm thick inter- between the silicon readout and the GaAs based
mediate GaAs contact layer. The VLWIR QWIP detector array, completely eliminates pixel-
structure has been designed to have a bound- to-pixel crosstalk, and nally, signicantly en-
to-quasibound intersubband absorption peak at hances an optical coupling of IR radiation into
14.5 lm, whereas the LWIR QWIP structure has QWIP pixels.
been designed to have a bound-to-continuum in- The performance of dual-band FPAs were tes-
tersubband absorption peak at 8.5 lm, since ted at a background temperature of 300 K, with
photocurrent and dark current of the LWIR de- f =2 cold stop, and at 30 Hz frame rate. The mean
vice structure is relatively small compared to the value of quantum eciency at operating temper-
VLWIR portion of the device structure. ature T 40 K and bias VB 2 V is 12.9% and
Fig. 24 shows schematic side view of the inter- 8.9% in LW and VLW spectral range, respectively.
lace dual-band GaAs/AlGaAs FPA. Two dierent The estimated NEDT of LWIR and VLWIR de-
2D periodic grating structures were designed to tectors at 40 K are 36 and 44 mK, respectively.

Fig. 24. Structure cross-section of the interlace dual-band FPA (after Ref. [64]).
A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210 207

6. Anticipated evolution of IR technology in the near arrays will capture the low-cost markets. Current
future uncooled bolometer FPAs have achieved NEDT
less than 10 mK with f =1 optics, what open the
The future applications of IR detector systems door to the use of less expensive slower optical
require: systems.
It is supposed that sales of IR thermal imaging
higher pixel sensitivity, equipment to the automobile market will begin to
further increase in pixel density to above 106 rapidly change the relative ratio between military/
pixels, government and commercial IR markets. Today
cost reduction in IR imaging array systems only about 10% of the market is commercial.
through the use of less cooling sensor technol- After a decade the commercial market can grow
ogy combined with integration of detectors and to over 70% in volume and 40% in value, largely
signal-processing functions (with much more connected with volume production of uncooled
on-chip signal processing), imagers for automobile driving [9]. In large volume
improvement in the functionality of IR imaging production for automobiles drivers the cost of
arrays through development of multispectral uncooled imaging systems will decrease to below
sensors. $1000. Of course, these systems will cover other
segments of the transportation industry: trucks,
To reduce the real cost of the IR image systems, trains, ships, barges, buses, and airplanes.
one must take action on all the elements, which For same applications requiring uncooled
make up the cost to the user. The cost can be detectors, the slow response speed is unaccept-
broken down into three parts: the chip (detector able. Recently, a number of concepts (e.g., non-
ROIC), the dewar, integration and tests. The user equilibrium device [68], multijunction HgCdTe
must add the cryogenic machine cost that is not photodiodes [69], optical immersion) and new
negligible compared to the component ones. This materials (InAsSb, InAs/GaSb-based type II su-
explains why the cost of PtSi or QWIPs is not perlattices) [11] have been proposed to improve
markedly less than that of photon detectors of the performance of photon detectors operating at near
same complexity, even though the raw materials room temperature. The measurements show the
(silicon and GaAs) is much less than for HgCdTe. possibility to achieve detectivity of  1  109
A possible reduction in the purchase price is cm Hz1=2 W1 at the 89 lm range and potentially,
counterbalanced by a signicant increase in oper- the devices can be assembled in large FPAs.
ating costs. Despite serious competition from alternative
Detector maturity is a function of the accumu- technologies and slower progress than expected,
lated experience and development eort, the HgCdTe is unlikely to be seriously challenged for
complexity of the device required, and the inherent high-performance applications, applications re-
diculty presented by the material technology. At quiring multispectral capability and fast response.
present, HgCdTe photodiodes and BIB extrinsic The recent successes of competing cryogenically
silicon detectors are not fully mature. PtSi tech- cooled detectors are due to technological, not
nology is mature and has received a plateau. Other fundamental issues. The steady progress in epit-
two detector technologies such as InSb and silicon axial technology would make HgCdTe devices
bolometers are still evolving signicantly as ap- much more aordable in the near future. The
plications for larger array congurations and much higher operation temperature of HgCdTe,
smaller pixel sizes continue to push the technology. compared to Schottky-barrier devices and low-
Thermal detector arrays will increase in size and dimensional solid devices, may become a decisive
improve in thermal sensitivity to a level satisfying argument in this case.
high performance applications at ambient tem- The fundamental performance limits of
perature. It is supposed that the silicon microbo- HgCdTe photodiodes have not been reached yet.
lometers arrays and the monolithic pyroelectric Continued development of the in situ vapour
208 A. Rogalski / Infrared Physics & Technology 43 (2002) 187210

phase epitaxy methods (MBE and MOCVD) will [5] E.S. Barr, The infrared pioneersII. Macedonio Melloni,
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