Photonis France

Centre National De La Recherche Scientifique

Moustapha Conde

Théo Jegorel

Jean-Christophe Harmand

Claude Alibert

Justin Foltz

The invention discloses a photocathode comprising an amorphous substrate such as a glass substrate () presenting an input face that will receive incident photons and a back face opposite the front face. Nanowires () made from at least one III-V semiconducting material are deposited on the back face of the substrate and extend from this face in a direction away from the front face. The invention also relates to a method for manufacturing such a photocathode by MBE.

Photocathode with nanowires and method of manufacturing such a photocathode

The invention relates to a photocathode including an input window () suitable for receiving a flow of incident photons, and an active layer (), the active layer consisting of a plurality of elementary layers () made of semiconductor materials having decreasing forbidden bandwidths in the direction of the flow of incident photons. The surface of the photocathode opposite the input window is structured so that each elementary layer of the active layer has its own photoelectric emission surface (). By choosing the semiconductor materials of the elementary layers, it is possible to obtain an image which has high sensitivity in both the visible spectrum and the near infrared.

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Brive la Gaillarde, France

Moustapha Conde