Optimisation of QWIP detectors for space applications

Autor: Carl Asplund, Hedda Malm, Partick Merken, Jorgen Alverbro, Sergiy Smuk, Pia Tinghag, Henk Martijn, Tim Souverijns, Dan Haga, Bernhard Hirschauer, Jan Borglind, Smilja Becanovic, Andrey Gromov
Rok vydání: 2005
Předmět:
Zdroj: SPIE Proceedings.
ISSN: 0277-786X
Popis: Acreo is one of the leading producers of QWIP FPAs in the world and is also intensively running R&D activities. The European Space Agency has awarded Acreo the contracts "Far-IR Linear Detector Array" in 6-18 μm infrared range within the Darwin mission's frameworks and "Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector Arrays" in 11-15 μm range for Earth observation (EO). The Darwin project imposes hard requirements on the dark current, while for the EO project the operating temperature is a stringent constraint. The goal of both contracts is to establish and demonstrate the ultimate performance of Acreo's QWIP-technology for these applications at the highest possible operating temperature. For this purpose Acreo designed, grew and characterised QWIP material sensitive to different wavelengths in the range of 6-18 μm. To investigate transport properties and verify the validity of the hydrodynamic model of the dark current, experiments with varying numbers of quantum wells per thickness unit and periods were conducted. A structure for long infrared region with an increased number of periods revealed a drastic reduction of the dark current at transient temperature. The dependence of the capture probabilities on the electron energy in the miniband resulting in different dependencies of the photoconductive gain for the photo- and dark currents on the number of periods is suggested as the reason for that. Such hypothesis shows possibilities for improvement of the balance between the photo- and dark current. Optimisation of the photoconductive gain changes the geometrical parameters of the detector and requires optimisation of the optical coupling.
Databáze: OpenAIRE