DEVELOPMENT OF INFRARED FOCAL-PLANE ARRAYS FOR SPACE

Space astronomy requires large-area cryogenic infrared focal plane arr ays (FPAs) with high quantum efficiency, extremely low dark current, l ow power dissipation, and background limited noise performance, To mee t these requirements, especially at temperatures of 5-15 K, Santa Barb ara Research Center designed and fabricated a new multiplexer, CRC-744 . The FPAs made by bonding InSb detector arrays to CRC-744 multiplexer s were evaluated at the University of Rochester. The best array achiev ed the read noise of 5 e(-) with 12 s integration and 7 e(-) with 200 s integration with Fowler-64 sampling at 15 K, the average dark curren t of <0.2 e(-)/s at both 15 and 29 It, and the average quantum efficie ncy of 87% at both 15 and 29 K. The 10%-90% rise time was 4 mu s drivi ng a 600 pF external load. The power dissipation was 0.3-0.4 mW when r unning hat-out (100% duly cycle). The full well capacity was 10(5) e(- ) (230 mV) with 400 mV of applied bias. The above test results demonst rate that the FPAs meet background-limited space experiment requiremen ts. The CRC-744 multiplexer works well down to at least 5 K (the lowes t temperature of our tests). (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.