Development of Type-II superlattice VLWIR detectors in JAXA

One of JAXA’s future missions, using an imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), requires the focal plane array (FPA) that has high sensitivity up to the very long-wavelength infrared (VLWIR) region. Since a Type-II superlattice (T2SL) is the only known infrared material to exhibit performance that is theoretically predicted to be higher than that of HgCdTe additionally the cutoff wavelength can be tailored in the wavelength region of 3-30 μm, we started the research and development of the T2SL detector in 2009. In order to confirm our final goal, which is to realize the FPA with a cutoff wavelength of 15 μm, we first fabricated the 320 × 256 (QVGA format) InAs/GaInSb T2SL FPA with a cutoff wavelength of 15 μm, and the large-format 640 × 512 (VGA format) T2SL FPA is followed because the other missions, using an infrared imager, require the large-format FPA. The noise-equivalent delta temperature measured with F1.4 optics was 0.15 K for QVGA format T2SL FPA at 77 K. It was 0.35 K for VGA format T2SL FPA at 77 K, but there is non-uniformity, and further improvements are necessary to achieve high performance FPAs.