Low SWaP MWIR and LWIR modules with small pixel pitch

Pixel pitch reduction as well as high operating temperatures (HOT) of IR focal plane arrays (FPA) have attracted huge development effort in recent years. While the development journey is continuously moving towards an ultra-small pixel pitch of ~5μm for MWIR FPAs by several manufacturers, for their LWIR pendants the focus has not been on pitch size reduction and HOT so far. This comes as a surprise, since low SWaP (size, weight, and power) LWIR modules in combination with high spatial resolution are of great interest due to their superior electro-optical (e/o) performance in particular for scenarios with degraded visual environment. An SXGA-format (1280x1024 pixels) MWIR module using a 7.5μm pixel pitch is currently under development at AIM. Excellent performance data were obtained with the first prototypes up to elevated operating temperatures of ~150K thanks to the AIM HOT MCT p/n detector technology. SWaP characteristics are analyzed for both a compact configuration using the in-house ‘SX035’ cooler and for an even smaller variant referred to as ‘HOT Cube SX’. Moreover, a low SWaP VGA-format MWIR module is under development at AIM using a 10μm pixel and a HOT rotary cooler. First measurement results will be shown. Promising first e/o data of XGA-format 10μm pitch LWIR FPAs manufactured in a planar MCT p/n technology have already been presented by AIM last year. Recently, the performance has been improved which is underlined by a high thermal resolution of ~30mk and a low level of noisy pixel at HOT of ~100K. Latest results as well as key features of the possible low SWaP IR-module configurations will be discussed.