Understanding and Breaking the Material Barriers of SiGeSn Alloys for Infrared Devices
Abstract
The objective of this MURI is to develop high quality, stable (Si)GeSn alloys for lighter, faster, higher signal to noise, and more energy efficient 2 5 ?m infrared imaging devices at low cost as the next generation of infrared imaging technology. The evidence is that (Si)GeSn has a tunable narrow bandgap to enable a seamless coverage of a broad infrared spectrum. Since the growth of (Si)GeSn material is on Si substrates and requires relatively low growth temperature, it is possible to build all signal processing circuits on the same Si substrate to enable “monolithic integration” for large scale industry manufacturing. To develop the quality and stable material, we bring together a MURI team already at the frontier of (Si)GeSn from material growth, modeling, properties, to high performance devices to address this problem. This team will leverage and build on its initial breakthroughs on (Si)GeSn lasers and detectors and use their unique but complementing growth techniques to design, fabricate, and demonstrate SiGeSn as the new dominating IR detector technology. They will conduct band structure engineering for the material to reduce the radiative and Auger recombination coefficients, leading to carrier lifetimes on the order of hundreds of microseconds, a corresponding long diffusion length, and low dark current while the absorption is maintained to be high. The outcome from this MURI will have a huge impact on the military, especially on aircrafts which must scan the battlefield in poor visibility situations, ground based night vision systems from the soldier to vehicles, and on missile tracking systems. The impact reaches well beyond the military, impacting medical care, surveillance, search and rescue, self driving vehicles, meteorology, and climatology, each of which already rely on IR detector technology.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jan 14, 2022
- Source ID
- FA95501910341
Entities
People
- Shui Qing Yu
Organizations
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research
- United States Air Force
- University of Arkansas