Modular and adaptative test-bed for infrared photodetectors

Nowadays, the detection in the infrared band (IR) has shown great importance in several areas such as skin illnesses detection, remote sensor and in different military devices. The responsible for such detection is, basically, photodetector arrays (FPA) sensitive to infrared radiation. This paper presents a modular and adaptative test-bed, based upon an arrangement of 24 electro and optical components divided in four major functional blocks, providing methodological procedures that allows an accurate design verification of infra-red photodetectors. The target metric that the system is conceived to provide is Responsivity. In essence, the developed system differs from the previous ones by its adaptability and its hardware modularity conception that allows an easy reconfiguration to test different kinds of photodetectors. This test-bed shows to be a truthful tool to support designers in the development of photodetectors, allowing low temperature measurements up to 10K with an accuracy of 0.05K, broadband radiation possibilities in wavelength from 700nm up to 15μm with an accuracy of 1nm and the possibility to set detectors with up to 10 I/O electric terminals and a photocurrent as small as 2fA. The operational validation of this test-bed is achieved with an already studied QWIP, exhibiting high compliance with the expected theoretical results.