MWIR mercury cadmium telluride detectors for high operating temperatures

Raising the operating temperature of infrared detectors has benefits in terms of reduced cooler power and increased life and enables an overall reduction in size and weight for handheld applications. With MCT the composition can be tuned to achieve the required wavelength range at a given temperature. Work on detectors operating in the 3-5 mu m atmospheric transmission window at operating temperatures up to 210K will be described. The influence of limiting factors such as excess noise, radiation shield emission, dark current and injection efficiency will be presented. Packaging aspects will be discussed emphasizing the importance of achieving low cost, weight and power for handheld applications. The impact of the detector design on overall system size and performance is considered with specific attention to time to image, passband and f-number. Finally images will be presented showing performance from a high operating temperature (HOT) camera.