Thermal imaging is an important tool for information gathering and situational awareness, especially in low light or visibly obscured conditions. Warm objects that are emissive in the MWIR or LWIR bands can be observed, including the body heat of soldiers, exhaust gases from vehicles, rockets or firearms, residual heat in camouflaged vehicles or airframes, and many other objects critical to threat detection and battlespace awareness. The current M/LWIR technology that demonstrates performance specifications sufficient for these information gathering and threat detection missions must be operated at cryogenic temperatures. The cooling adds prohibitive size, weight, power, and cost limitations, and may limit operational lifetimes. The coolers add a significant power requirement to the cameras, necessitating large power packs, and they produce unwanted audible noise. Episensors, Inc. (Episensors) proposes to develop a high operating temperature (HOT) focal plane array (FPA) that can image while operating at or near room temperature. The HOT LWIR FPA will comprise a photodetector pixel array employing HgTe colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) as the photodiode material. Based on photodiodes, this HOT LWIR FPA will provide a high framerate and rapid response to fast objects, without ghosting or the need to periodically reset the non-uniformity correction.
