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Army hands Goodrich InGaAs development contract

Improvements to an InP substrate removal process under a military development contract should also benefit commercial and medical applications of Goodrich's InGaAs photodiodes.

Goodrich Corporation's optical and space systems team, formerly known as Sensors Unlimited (SUI), has won a $0.75 million development contract from the US Army to improve InGaAs device manufacturing.

The Army wants the Princeton, NJ, firm to deliver a detector array for night vision that can record high-definition images in the infrared range while simultaneously capturing visible-range imagery.

The proposed 1920 x 1080 pixel cameras should also show an improvement in sensitivity, and detect light in an unspecified "new" wavelength band.

To do this, the Goodrich team, led by Martin Ettenberg, will focus on improving the design of the chips used within the camera. For example, the array will feature a pixel pitch of just 12 µm "“ compared with 25 µm in the current dual-wavelength design (see related feature article).

This will be combined with a smaller diode collection area, leading to smaller arrays with lower noise and higher resolution, while the manufacturing process will also be tinkered with in the two-year project:

"Work will also focus on improving the visible response from the current, commercially-proven InP substrate removal process," said Goodrich in a statement.

"These improvements will result in higher device yields, which will lower the cost per unit and provide much higher sensitivity in dark or low-light conditions," added the company.

And while the US military will be the first beneficiary of the technological development, a host of other applications could soon be taking advantage.

For example, the improved detectors could be used in medical applications such as optical coherence tomography, a relatively new non-invasive imaging technique that is useful for detecting early-stage cancers.

The arrays could also be useful in heavy industry, perhaps imaging the hot-rolling stage in steel manufacture, while thanks to the higher yield and hence lower cost of devices there could be more widespread deployment in conventional applications such as machine vision.

Goodrich acquired SUI last year for $60 million in cash, whereupon it became part of the aerospace giant's existing optical and space systems division based in Danbury, CT.

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