Long-Wavelength Infrared Technology for Astronomy at the Hughes Technology Center

Abstract

The Hughes Technology Center (HTC) has developed a family of high-performance Si:As impurity-band conduction (IBC) hybrid focal plane arrays (FPAs) optimized for low background applications: 58 × 62 pixels (76-µm pitch), 128 × 128 pixels (75- and 120-μm pitch), and 256×256 pixels (30-µm pitch). These FPAs exhibit state-of-the-art low noise (< 100e -) achieved by using readout arrays fabricated on HTC’s CryoCMOS process line. The IBC detector arrays, also fabricated at HTC, exhibit high quantum efficiency over a wide waveband with operating temperature of 4–12 K. In addition, Hughes is developing a 256 × 256 Si:As IBC FPA for high background applications as well as a 512 × 512 FPA. Readout development includes design and fabrication of 256 × 256 readouts with large well size of 1 × 107 e - for the high-background FPA and 512×512 readouts with moderate well size (1 × 106 e -).