Testing a 10 micron HgCdTe Detector for Ground-Based Exoplanet Science

The next generation of extremely large telescopes may be able to directly image an Earth-like around nearby stars in the mid-infrared (10 mu m). To carry out this goal we need to understand which types of mid-infrared detectors are best for instruments that will be used behind extremely large telescopes. Arsenic doped silicon detectors are very common in mid-infrared astronomical instruments, but they produce excess low frequency noise that prevents long exposures observations from being photon noise limited. In this paper we are describing our plan and setup to test an alternative, a mid-infrared HgCdTe detector which has not exhibited ELFN in near infrared wavelengths. We are using electronics that can clock 11 millisecond exposure times with the detector at room temperature to compensate for the bright mid-infrared sky background. We discuss the ideal focal ratio system for an 1 to 1 imager using this detector and future tests to understand this detectors quantum efficiency and operability from near to mid-infrared.