Development of sensitive long-wave infrared detector arrays for passively cooled space missions

Abstract

The near-earth object camera (NEOCam) is a proposed infrared space mission designed to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 m in diameter that orbit near the Earth. NASA has funded technology development for NEOCam, including the development of long wavelength infrared detector arrays that will have excellent zodiacal background emission-limited performance at passively cooled focal plane temperatures. Teledyne Imaging Sensors has developed and delivered for test at the University of Rochester the first set of approximately 10 micron cutoff, 1024 x 1024 pixel HgCdTe detector arrays. Measurements of these arrays show the development to be extremely promising: noise, dark current, quantum efficiency, and well depth goals have been met by this technology at focal plane temperatures of 35 to 40 K, readily attainable with passive cooling. The next set of arrays to be developed will address changes suggested by the first set of deliverables.

10 pages, 11 Figures

References in corpus (4)

• The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE): Mission Description and Initial On-orbit Performance
• NEOWISE Observations of Near-Earth Objects: Preliminary Results
• Characterizing Subpopulations within the Near Earth Objects with NEOWISE: Preliminary Results
• Inter-Pixel Crosstalk in Teledyne Imaging Sensors (TIS) H4RG-10 Detectors

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Detecting Earth's Temporarily-Captured Natural Satellites - Minimoons
• Modeling the Performance of the LSST in Surveying the Near-Earth Object Population
• Asteroid thermal modeling in the presence of reflected sunlight with an application to WISE/NEOWISE observational data
• Proton irradiation results for long-wave HgCdTe infrared detector arrays for NEOCam
• Evaluating the GeoSnap 13-$\mu$m Cut-Off HgCdTe Detector for mid-IR ground-based astronomy
• Laboratory characterization of SLS-based infrared detectors for precision photometry