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Development of 15 Micron Cutoff Wavelength HgCdTe Detector Arrays for Astronomy

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Abstract

Space-based missions using infrared astronomy technologies have revolutionized the field of astronomy, increasing our knowledge of the evolution of the universe and our own solar system. Instruments in past space missions that used long wave infrared (LWIR) detector arrays (wavelength cutoff above ∼5 μm) required cooling to very low temperatures with on-board cryogens.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Holes correspond to empty energy levels, and can act as a positive charge carriers with charge + q under the influence of electric and magnetic fields.

  2. 2.

    The details of this parameter and derivation of this dark current component (diffusion) is presented in Sect. 3.1.

  3. 3.

    In the detector arrays presented here, the exponent term goes to zero with ∼25 mV of reverse detector bias, where the typical applied reverse bias ranges from 50–350 mV.

  4. 4.

    Well depth is the measure of how much charge the diode can collect before it reaches saturation.

  5. 5.

    In addition to high QE and low read noise, the operability requirements also include well depths of more than 46,000 e − and dark current less than 200 e −∕s at 40 K, which will be the focal plane temperature for NC2. Since most pixels have shown to have good QE and read noise, much of the development of the LW10 devices has been focused on reducing the dark currents at the required temperature of 40 K.

  6. 6.

    This larger well depth than the applied bias is due to the pedestal injection contribution, see Sect. 2.3

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Glenn Dale, MD, USA

    Mario Cabrera

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  1. Mario Cabrera
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Cabrera, M. (2020). Introduction. In: Development of 15 Micron Cutoff Wavelength HgCdTe Detector Arrays for Astronomy. Springer Theses. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54241-2_1

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