ABSTRACT

Infrared sensors are very important to military sensing systems for target acquisition, tracking, discrimination and aim point selection. Most current infrared military systems use mercury-cadmium-telluride (HgCdTe), a IIVI semiconductor material, for long-wavelength (LW) (812 µm) focal plane arrays (FPAs). HgCdTe has difficulty in achieving large format FPAs at long wavelengths due to its low yield, aggravated by the limitation of the small cadmium-zinc-telluride (CdZnTe) substrates. Antinomide (Sb)-based type II strained layer superlattice (SLS) has the potential to perform better than HgCdTe, and at a lower cost by leveraging the commercial III-V foundries for manufacturing. The Missile Defense Agency Advanced Technology Directorate (MDA/DV) has been developing SLS material for the past few years and has made significant progress. The success in SLS LW has warranted a new SLS program at MDA to address SLS manufacturing issues. This program promotes horizontal integration of IR sensors instead of the current IR FPA fabrication approach, which is vertically integrated within one company. This paper will give the most recent progress made in SLS and describe the new approach of the SLS manufacturing program.