Room temperature detector array technology for the terahertz to far-infrared.

Abstract

Thermal detection has made extensive progress in the last 40 years, however, the speed and detectivity can still be improved. The advancement of silicon photonic microring resonators has made them intriguing for detection devices due to their small size and high quality factors. Implementing silicon photonic microring or microdisk resonators as a means of a thermal detector gives rise to higher speed and detectivity, as well as lower noise compared to conventional devices with electrical readouts. This LDRD effort explored the design and measurements of silicon photonic microdisk resonators used for thermal detection. The characteristic values, consisting of the thermal time constant ({tau} {approx} 2 ms) and noise equivalent power were measured and found to surpass the performance of the best microbolometers. Furthermore the detectivity was found to be D{sub {lambda}} = 2.47 x 10{sup 8} cm {center_dot} {radical}Hz/W at 10.6 {mu}m which is comparable to commercial detectors. Subsequent design modifications should increase the detectivity by another order of magnitude. Thermal detection in the terahertz (THz) remains underdeveloped, opening a door for new innovative technologies such as metamaterial enhanced detectors. This project also explored the use of metamaterials in conjunction with a cantilever design for detection in the THz region and demonstrated the use of metamaterials as custom thin film absorbers for thermal detection. While much work remains to integrate these technologies into a unified platform, the early stages of research show promising futures for use in thermal detection.