The DEPLI sensor: A new structure for very-high-resolution imagers

This paper presents a new sensor structure for very-high-resolution imagers, easily allowing sensor pitches of 8 µm, 6 µm, and even 5 µm on a single row. The sensors simply consist of n
⁺
photodiodes on a p-substrate. For lateral isolation, only the built-in depletion region of the n-p diodes is used, so no LOCOS or field-shield isolation is required. The theoretical MTF of this new sensor structure was calculated and optimized, and compared with experimental results obtained on 3456-element quadrilinear CCD's with 8-µm pitch and 1728- element quadrilinear CCD's with 6-µm pitch. A 400-element 5-µm-pitch single-sensor-row quadrilinear CCD has also been realized.