This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will design and develop high efficiency silicon germanium (SiGe) photodetectors for infrared imaging systems based on a SiGe bipolar-complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology. Current infrared imaging systems are widely made of InSb and HgCdTe due to their high sensitivity to thermal radiation from 3 -5 and 8 -12 um. However, they are incompatible to the mainstream Si CMOS technology for electronic readouts; hence the infrared imaging systems are discrete, incapable of scaling, and expensive besides the critical cryogenic temperature requirement. Thermal radiation from warm and hot objects contains a large quantity of infrared photons from 0.9 to 12 um. SiGe is an optical detecting material compatible to the Si CMOS technology and can detect photons from 0.9 to 1.5 um, making it possible to develop a variety of integrated infrared imaging systems on a chip based on a SiGe BiCMOS technology.
Any improvement and breakthroughs in the development of a high-efficiency high-speed SiGe photodetector compatible to the Si CMOS technology and an on-chip SiGe BiCMOS infrared imaging system made of it will have a great impact on the field of semiconductor imaging. The successful development means that various SiGe BiCMOS infrared imaging systems on a chip can be designed and developed for various applications in both imaging industries and US militaries. The most obvious applications include night vision for vehicles, medical thermography for cancer or tumor detection during diagnosis or surgery. The proposed effort on SiGe photodetectors will also greatly benefit the research, development, and commercialization of the emerging silicon-based nanophotonics for advanced signal processing and data communication. Further, the project will also integrate with the UCLA undergraduate microfabrication education and research experiences program.
