SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a new materials technology to help drive a revolution in infrared microscopy, using a newly developed technique to grow pure germanium on silicon without crystalline defects. Silicon imagers are widely used, from supermarket scanners to the ultra-sensitive CCDs used in astronomy. Germanium is photosensitive over a much wider spectrum, from visible to well into the infrared. Combining this new spectral ability with fine-line silicon manufacturing could turn infrared dusk into broad daylight Characterization and understanding of material grown by this new technique is limited. Controlling leakage is essential to maximize sensitivity. Pixel geometries to best trade off resolution for noise performance must be identified. The broad impacts from this work would be the near infrared (NIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectral range from 800 to 1600 nm, which holds considerable scientific and applied interest. Initial applications could be in medical imaging and pharmaceutical inspection leading into a much broader application field including night and fog vision for security, monitoring of crops, pollution and climate, and range-finding for defense and construction applications

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project aims to leverage new materials technology to drive a revolution in infrared imaging. Silicon imagers are widely used, from supermarket scanners to the ultra-sensitive charge-coupled devices (CCDs) used in astronomy. Germanium is photo-sensitive over a wider spectrum, from visible to well into the infrared. Combining this new spectral capability with fine-line silicon manufacturing brings high resolution, high reliability and lower costs to infrared imaging, enabling new applications, especially in dentistry and medicine. Short-wave infrared (SWIR) imagers today using exotic materials have limited resolution and are too costly for widespread use. This SBIR Phase II project proposes to design a prototype silicon-imaging array for use with integrated germanium pixels. The proposed project has broad impact. The short-wave infrared (SWIR) spectral range from 800 to 1600 nanometer (nm) holds considerable scientific and applied interest. The human eye does not focus wavelengths past 1.4 micron, so that infrared imaging using active illumination with bright flashes is possible without endangering safety. The most promising immediate application is dental imaging, where the transparency of tooth enamel at 1300 nm allows improved diagnostics through infrared imaging.