Characterization Of High Performance Silicide Schottky Photodiodes

Schottky barrier diodes made from platinum silicide are outstanding candidates for staring imagery in the MWIR band. This use was first suggested by Shepherd et. al. in 1974 who reported results on small arrays. The technology has advanced rapidly and large, two dimensional arrays of staring Schottky diodes are presently available. The detectors are fabricated on high quality, VLSI grade silicon substrates. Two dimensional arrays of these diodes have extremely high uniformity of optical responsivity. This fact allows for simple application of non-uniformity correction algorithms which give MRT's of less than 0.05K. The rapid advancement of PtSi as an infrared imaging technology is in a large part due to the advanced state of silicon substrate technology.