Development of T2SLS LWIR focal plane arrays for the Hyperspectral Thermal Imager (HyTI) (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Hyperspectral Thermal Imager (HyTI) is NASA Earth Science Technology Office’s In-space Validation of Earth Science Technologies (InVEST) 2018 funded project to space qualify the strained layer superlattice based Barrier Infrared Detector (BIRD) Focal Plane Array [1] and Fabry-Perot Interferometer amongst other technologies. Its science goal is to monitor the global hydrological cycles and water resources, and develop a detailed understanding of the movement, distribution and availability of water and its variability over time. The heart of the HyTI hyperspectral imager is a 2-dimensional, BIRD FPA designed and developed at JPL. The engineering model of the HyTI instrument was based on a FPA without anti-reflection coating (ARC), which had 24% and 18% quantum efficiency in 8-9.4 m and 8-10.7 m spectral bands respectively at 68K operating temperature. We have deposited a novel nanotechnology based [2] ARC on flight FPA and it produced 31% and 24% quantum efficiency in 8-9.4 m and 8-10.7 m spectral bands respectively at 68K operating temperature. During this presentation we will discuss the development of LWIR BIRD FPAs for the HyTI project.