The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 24, 1998
Filed:
Jul. 23, 1996
William A Radford, Santa Barbara, CA (US);
Jerry A Wilson, Goleta, CA (US);
Hughes Electronics, Los Angeles, CA (US);
Abstract
An array of photodetectors is constructed of IR radiation-responsive Group II-VI alloy semiconductor material, such as HgCdTe. A novel photodetector structure utilizes internal reflections from mesa (10, 10') sidewalls and/or from reflective material (22) that is applied to the mesa sidewalls to achieve a concentration of incident infrared radiation into a significantly smaller radiation absorbing region (16). The resulting self-focusing or light piping effect enables the leakage current and other noise-generating processes to be minimized, while providing an effective large optical collection area. The fabrication of specular, flat, sloped mesa sidewalls is preferably accomplished by a reactive ion etch process. Signal crosstalk between photodetectors is reduced or eliminated since the radiation absorbing regions are fully delineated and isolated from one another by deep trenches that define the mesa sidewalls. Thus, the diffusion of optically generated carriers from one photodetector to an adjacent photodetector is prevented.