ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE OF NEW INFRARED HgCdTe FOCAL PLANE ARRAYS

V.V. Osipov, V.P. Ponomarenko and A.Yu. Selyakov
State Unitary Enterprise "RD&P Center "Orion", Moscow, Russia

ABSTRACT

       We theoretically study physical processes in new promising hybrid IR FPAs based on HgCdTe p-n junctions and analyze them ultimate perfomance for 3 - 5 microns and 8 - 10 microns spectral ranges. Arhitecture of these FPAs are much simpler than that of existing FPAs: IR-sensitive HgCdTe p-n junctions are used as switches themselves, and capacitors used as storage elements occupy all the area under each p-n junction. These capacitors can be produced on the base of dielectrics with relatively high permittivity (of TiO2 type or integrated ferroelectrics). In contrast to CCD and CID, the proposed FPA does not use change transfer between electrodes separated in spase.

       We formulate requirements to the parameters of photosensitive elements and storage capacitors to reach the largest intergration time and threshold characteristics close to the theoretical limit. It is shown that in priciple the considered FPAs have unique parameters and 1/f noise of amplifiers can be suppressed in them. FPA for 3 - 5 microns spectral range with p-n junction of 20 X 20 micronsя2 area can operate in BLIP mode at background temperature 300K; its photosignal intergration time equal to the persistence of human eye and format can reach 1024 • 1024 pixels. For 8 - 10 microns range these parameters are 300 microns and 256 • 256 pixels, respectively, when TiO2 storage capacitors are used.