Technology:
Performance MWIR and LWIR RCE-PDs with a ~50 times reduction in absorber volume.

Goal:
Sensing of several important medical and environmental gases including CO2, CH4, N2O, acetone and glucose.

Technology:
Paired resonant cavity LED and RCE-PD at 4.472 microns for detection of N2O.

Goal:
Greater resolution and lower cost in subsurface gas concentration measurements, leading to more accurate parameters for more accurate modeling of complex subsurface systems.

Technology:
RCE-PD at 3.31microns, compatible with single-pixel camera imaging, for methane detection in the MWIR band.

Goal:
High sensitivity, low power, and lightweight imager for UAV’s and handheld systems to boost the scope of methane source mapping.

Technology:
LWIR RCE-PD (9.3 microns), paired with a sourced Quantum Cascade Laser (Pranalytica) capable of ~ GHz bandwidth.

Goal:
Free-space links using the LWIR band, where atmosphere absorption and scattering are weak, for secure communications.

Technology:
Sensor system for subsurface CO2 isotopologue discrimination, incorporating broadband, low-dark current nBn detector optimized for 4.36 microns.

Goal:
Low cost and accurate tool to support Monitoring, Verification, and Accounting in sequestration.

Technology:
nBn detector on GaSb with absorber composition optimized for 2.0-2.5 microns (e-SWIR transmission band).

Goal:
Improved detectors for important e-SWIR applications such as imaging with nightglow, seeing through smoke/haze with less scattering, and spectroscopy.

Technology:
nBn detector with highly manufacturable III-V materials, enhanced by hydrogenation and designed for cutoff wavelengths of 2 to 5 microns.

Goal:
Infrared detectors with reduced cooling requirements to bolster orbital and in situ compositional analysis and mapping in future planetary missions.

Technology:
Octave-spanning (3-6 micron), GHz-bandwidth, thermoelectrically cooled nBn detector with high sensitivity (Noise Equivalent Power < 1pW/Hz^1/2).

Goal:
Step-function increases in speed and sensitivity for portable, mid-infrared comb spectroscopy systems, within the SCOUT (Spectral Combs from UV to Terahertz) program.

Technology:
GaAs and InP-based SPADs as a pathway for high volume scale-up of discrete components, monolithic integration and a pathway for multi-functional Quantum Photonic Integrated Circuits (QPICs).

Goal:
Improve epitaxial material deposition, fabrication uniformity and reliability.

Technology:
SPAD at a telecom wavelength, InGaAs and GaSb based and having > 100 MHz bandwidth, for integration with an AlGaAs-on-insulator entangled photon source (U. California, Santa Barbara).

Goal:
Disruptive component for emerging ground-to-satellite and satellite-to-satellite quantum encrypted communications and distributed quantum sensing.

Technology:
Low-loss infrared Ultrawide Type II Hyperbolic metamaterials based on heavily doped InAs and dry-etched into 1D square gratings with a period shorter than 5µm.

Goal:
Use III-V metamaterials as a low-low plasmonic material that can be integrated with traditional III-V infrared devices such as photodetectors and photoemitters at a large scale.

Technology:
Integrated flat micro-lens arrays for III-V infrared detectors to provide light concentration in SWIR and MWIR.

Goal:
Improve detector performance by increasing signal for a given noise level, including enabling smaller diameter detectors that have higher bandwidths.

Technology:
Tunable (MWIR, LWIR) Type-II Superlattice LED structures by heteroepitaxy on GaAs or Si.

Goal:
Affordable, high-power LED arrays with a high dynamic range (versus resistor arrays), capable of large areas and on a substrate with good heat dissipation, as core components of scene projection systems for infrared imager testing.

Technology:
Resonant cavity Light-emitting diodes for infrared gas spectroscopy.

Goal:
Use RC-LEDs to replace costly Quantum cascade lasers (QCL) typically used for infrared gas spectroscopy systems. Demonstrate their use for environmental gas monitoring (N2O and other).

Technology:
Marshaling a suite of ion beam methods (Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis for H, Nuclear Reaction Analysis for C and O, Particle Induced X-ray Emission for mineral composition, and ion beam Induced Luminescence) for quantification of C, H, and O in shale.

Goal:
More efficient and integrated characterization of shale to support oil and gas exploration.

Technology:
Deuterium tagging for mapping of point defects of CdZnTe (CZT) substrates.

Goal:
In-process inspection tool for correlating crystal growth and wafer processing methods with defect types and concentrations, to improve the operability and yield of focal plane arrays grown on CZT.

Technology:
Passivation of dislocation defects by hydrogenation of HgCdTe on silicon.

Goal:
Improve the performance of HgCdTe on silicon in the LWIR region by reducing and/or electrically neutralizing the defects originating at the substrate/epilayer interface.

Technology:
Photon-assisted hydrogenation process technology of HgCdTe Infrared Detectors.

Goal:
Improve the operability and performance of HgCdTe NIR avalanche photodiode arrays to lower the manufacturing costs of HgCdTe detectors.