Detectors & Imaging

Princeton Infrared wins $750K SBIR award to develop coherent ladar arrays

May 2, 2019

The arrays will use multi-quantum-well materials enabling detection from 0.9 to 2.4 micron with high efficiency.

Princeton Infrared Technologies (PIRT; Monmouth Junction, NJ), specialists in indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) imaging technology and affordable shortwave-infrared (SWIR) linescan cameras, visible-SWIR science cameras, and linear and 2D imaging arrays, announces a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award.

The Phase II SBIR contract with Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) will fund the development of detector arrays for coherent laser detection and ranging (ladar). Princeton Infrared Technologies will focus on developing detector arrays using multi-quantum-well materials enabling detection from 0.9 to 2.4 μm with low dark current and high efficiency. This will enable a new generation of high-resolution cameras that can image at, or near, room temperature while allowing high sensitivity in the SWIR spectrum.

The new arrays will be high speed, enabling next-generation coherent ladar using arrays versus single-element detectors. The SBIR Phase II project is a $750,000, two-year effort that will concentrate on new material development. Princeton Infrared Technologies and its’ subcontractors will be conducting research on the development of new multi-quantum-well materials, in addition to strained-superlattice materials manufactured on indium phosphide (InP) substrates.

The R&D work will be supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH. President of Princeton Infrared Technologies, Martin H. Ettenberg, said, "Utilizing multi-quantum well materials will enable high-sensitivity detectors to image beyond what lattice-matched InGaAs detectors can detect in the SWIR range. These next-generation detector arrays will benefit long-range LADAR used by the Air Force to identify targets. Current systems require cryogenic cooling while these materials will not, thus vastly lowering costs, size, weight, and power. The material development will also be useful in the commercial sector for spectroscopy and industrial imaging."

SOURCE: Princeton Infrared Technologies; https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.www.bucket/princetonirtech/nodes/attachments/196/5-1-19PrincetonInfraredAnnouncesSBIR_PhaseIIAFRLAward_forCoherentLADAR.pdf?1556722329

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.