Long-wavelength 256 x 256 GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) palm-size camera

A 9 mu m cutoff 256 x 256 palm-size quantum well infrared photodetector (QW IP) camera weighing only 2.5 Ibs, and using 5.5 W of power has been demonst rated. Excellent imagery, with a noise equivalent differential temperature (NE Delta T) of 23 mK has been achieved. It is well known that QWIP has ver y low 1/f noise, high operability, and uniformity. As a result, this camera uses a prerecorded nonuniformity correction table (i.e., gains and offsets ) stored in its read-only-memory during operation, which enabled the miniat urization of this camera. In this paper, we discuss the development of this very sensitive long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) camera based on a GaAs/AlGa As QWIP focal plane array (FPA) and its performance in terms of quantum eff iciency, NE Delta T, MRDT, uniformity, and operability.