Mid-infrared materials and devices for 4th generation infrared imagers

Summary form only given. Infrared imaging (3-25μm) has been an important technological tool for the past sixty years since the first report of infrared detectors in 1950s. The ability to detect the temperature of a scene from the blackbody radiation that it emits has spawned applications in a wide variety of fields ranging from defense and security to non-invasive medical diagnostics and remote sensing. However, IR imaging landscape has dramatically changed in the past decade. Firstly, the cost of lower end imagers has been steadily declining (30% every year since 2005) enabling them to be mounted on dashboards of automobiles including Audis and BMWs. Secondly, advent of novel antimonide based semiconductor technology has dramatically improved the performance of higher end imagers that are used for military, defense and security applications. Our group (www.chtm.unm.edu/kind) has been involved with the development of next generation infrared detectors and is one of two university laboratories in the country that can undertake “Design to Camera” research and realize focal plane arrays.