Hybrid IRCCD imaging array

A hybrid IRCCD for high background application has been successfully fabricated. The device consists of fifty Hg
0.7
Cd
0.3
Te detector diodes of 50-µm × 50-µm sensitive areas and a silicon CCD maltiplexer with input circuits on 40-µm centers having bucket background subtraction and blooming protection circuits. The noise-equivalent power (NEP) of the IRCCD is 5 × 10
^-14
W-Hz
^-1/2
at background photon flux level of 4 × 10
¹⁵
photons . cm
^-2
s
^-1
, integration time of 2 × 10
^-5
s, and clock frequency of 3 × 10
⁶
Hz. The noise source of the detector diodes limits the IRCCD performance. The IRCCD is also evaluated with the real-time raster-scanned thermal images displayed on a CRT monitor. Two-dimensional images are generated by using a scanning mirror. A fixed-pattern noise is reduced by comparison of an object video to the reference video stored in a memory. A noise-equivalent temperature difference of the system is 0.6°C at a frame rate of 30 Hz. Instantaneous field of view is 1 mrad × 1 mrad and the field of view of the system is 12° × 5.7°.