Micro-coolers for FPAs (MC-FPA)
Abstract
The Micro-coolers for FPAs program will develop low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) cryogenic coolers for application in high performance infrared (IR) cameras. It is well known that the sensitivity of an IR focal-plane array (FPA) is improved by cooling its detectors to cryogenic temperatures. The disadvantages of state-of-the-art cryo-coolers are their large size, high power and high cost. Thermoelectric (TE) coolers are relatively small, but are very power hungry. To reduce IR camera SWaP-C, innovations in cooler technology are needed. This program will exploit the Joule-Thompson (J-T) cooling principle, in a silicon-based MEMS technology, for making IR FPA coolers with very low SWaP-C. MEMS microfluidics, piezoelectric MEMS, and complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) electronics will be used to demonstrate an integrated cold head and compressor, all in a semiconductor chip. This program has related applied research efforts funded under PE 0602716E, Project ELT-01.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2014
- Source ID
- 026b31f366aad50106f44940f5de2ec8