Robert M. Brubaker

High speed short wave infrared (SWIR) imaging and range gating cameras

Imaging in the Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) provides unique surveillance capabilities, both with passive illumination from the night glow in the atmosphere or with active illumination from covert LED or eye-safe lasers. Spectral effects specific to the 0.9 to 1.7 um wavelength range reveal camouflage and chemical signatures of ordinance. The longer wavelength range also improves image resolution over visible cameras in foggy or dusty environments. Increased military interest in cameras that image all laser range finders and target designators on the battlefield has driven development of a new class of uncooled InGaAs cameras with higher resolution and larger field of view than previously available. Current and upcoming needs include: imaging in all lighting conditions, from direct sunlight to partial starlight while using minimal power; range gating the camera to image through obscurants or beyond unimportant objects; and high speed capture of muzzle flare, projectile tracking, guide star and communications laser-beam tracking and wavefront correction. This paper will present images from new COTS cameras now available to address these needs and discuss the technology roadmap for further improvements.

High-resolution SWIR arrays for imaging at night

We describe innovations in short wave infrared (SWIR) InGaAs focal plane arrays and cameras which now allow imaging under starlight only conditions at video rates. These lattice matched In.53Ga.47As imagers detect 0.9 μm to 1.7 μm SWIR band light, which is generally reflected from the imaged target. At night, the sources of light are the night glow, stars, the moon, or light pollution from nearby towns and cities. Detectivities, D*, greater than 6 x 1013 cm-√Hz/W and no image lag are necessary to image under starlight only conditions at RS-170 video rates. The InGaAs arrays are now commercially available in formats as large as 640 x 512 on a 25 μm pitch, and custom arrays are being manufactured on a 15 μm pitch with pixel counts as large as 1280 x 1024. The cameras are capable of adapting to the different light conditions that may occur in a scene over a 24-hour period, without the need for new corrections; this illumination variation can be over 5 orders of magnitude. The InGaAs material is stable, making new field corrections unnecessary for the life of the camera and eliminating the need for mechanical parts. The cameras have a dual output design to produce corrected analog output at video rates without the assistance of a computer, and corrected digital output through a 14 bit Camera Link interface.

Indium gallium arsenide imaging with smaller cameras, higher-resolution arrays, and greater material sensitivity

Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) photodiode arrays have numerous commercial, industrial, and military applications. During the past 10 years, great strides have been made in the development of these devices starting with simple 256-element linear photodiode arrays and progressing to the large 640 x 512 element area arrays now readily available. Linear arrays are offered with 512 elements on a 25 micron pitch with no defective pixels, and are used in spectroscopic monitors for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems as well as in machine vision applications. A 320 x 240 solid-state array operates at room temperature, which allows development of a camera which is smaller than 25 cm3 in volume, weighs less than 100 g and uses less than 750 mW of power. Two dimensional focal plane arrays and cameras have been manufactured with detectivity, D*, greater than 1014 cm-(root)Hz/W at room temperature and have demonstrated the ability to image at night. Cameras are also critical tools for the assembly and performance monitoring of optical switches and add-drop multiplexers in the telecommunications industry. These same cameras are used for the inspection of silicon wafers and fine art, laser beam profiling, and metals manufacturing. By varying the Indium content, InGaAs photodiode arrays can be tailored to cover the entire short-wave infrared spectrum from 1.0 micron to 2.5 microns. InGaAs focal plane arrays and cameras sensitive to 2.0 micron wavelength light are now available in 320 x 240 formats.

A low-power, TEC-less, 1280 x 1024, compact SWIR camera with temperature-dependent, non-uniformity corrections

Significant research and development efforts are currently underway to produce robust Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) camera systems with low power consumption. Substantial improvements in power can be achieved through the elimination of the thermoelectric cooler (TEC) on the FPA. Removing the TEC from the system introduces temperature as a significant parameter effecting FPA spatial uniformity, effectively requiring more complex temperature dependent non-uniformity image correction algorithms. We present here our latest work in developing a parameterized non-uniformity correction algorithm for a low-power no-TEC camera. The camera used in these experiments is the Goodrich GA1280J-15 high resolution, high sensitivity, InGaAs SWIR camera operating at 30 Hz, and modified to operate without a TEC. The FPA size is 1280 x 1024 pixels, with a 15 μm pitch. Typical power when operating with parameterized non-uniformity corrections consumption is 3 W or less. The camera under test was mounted inside of an environmental chamber and images at varying illumination levels were acquired from -50 to 70 °C with a 10 °C step. Analysis of these images yielded the optimal orders and coefficients for a parameterized non-uniformity corrections model consisting of a sum of polynomials in raw counts, and FPA temperature. The optimized model was determined to be 1st order in counts and 5th order in FPA temperature, with an average R2 between the target counts and corrected counts of 0.999 ± 0.001, and average reduction of spatial noise of 83 ± 7 % across all camera operational modes.

Range-gated imaging with an indium-gallium-arsenide-based focal plane array

Range-gated imaging using indium gallium arsenide based focal plane arrays enables both depth and intensity imaging with eye-safe lasers while remaining covert to night vision goggles. We report on a focal plane array consisting of an indium gallium arsenide photodiode array hybrid-integrated with a CMOS readout circuit, resulting in an all solid state device. A 5 V supply avoids the complication of high voltage supplies and improves reliability, while also allowing the device to be small and lightweight. The spectral sensitivity of InGaAs extends from 0.9 microns to 1.7 microns, allowing the use of commercially available pulsed lasers with 1.5 micron wavelength, several millijoule pulse energies, and nanosecond scale pulse durations. SUI is developing a 320 x 256 pixel imager with the ability to conduct range gated imaging with sub-100 ns gates, while also allowing a 16 ms integration time for imaging in a staring mode. The pixels are fabricated on a 25 micron pitch for a compact device, and all pixels are gated simultaneously for “snapshot” exposure. High in-pixel gain with nearly noiseless amplification and low dark current enable high sensitivity imaging from ultra-short gates to video rate imaging.

Development of linear array ROIC for InGaAs detector arrays with wavelength response to 2.5 microns for NIR spectroscopy and machine vision

The design and development of a new, flexible, linear array readout integrated circuit (ROIC) for a new family of linear array detectors are described in this paper. The detector technology used is based on indium-gallium-arsenide (InGaAs) and includes low dark current versions with room temperature wavelength response cutoff of 1.7 microns and versions with altered stoichiometry to shift the room temperature absorbance cutoff wavelength to 2.55 microns. Discussion includes choice of features to cover many applications, testing methods, and evaluation of the first versions produced. The result will be a highly flexible linear array family, with versions matched to biological imaging, hot process inspection, pharmaceutical pill inspection, agricultural sorting and contaminant rejection, plastics recycling, moisture monitoring of continuous web processes.

Development of high-speed InGaAs linear array and camera for OCT and machine vision

Spectral Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (SD-OCT) is a rapidly growing imaging technique for high-resolution visualization of structures within strongly scattering media. It is being used to create 2-D and 3-D images in biological tissues to measure structures in the eye, image abnormal growths in organ tissue, and to assess the health of arterial walls. The ability to image to depths of several millimeters with resolutions better than 5 microns has driven the need to maximize the image depth, while also increasing the imaging speed. Researchers are using short-wave-infrared light wavelengths from 1 to 1.6 microns to penetrate deeper in denser tissue than visible or NIR wavelengths. This, in turn, has created the need to increase the line rates of InGaAs linear array cameras by a factor of ten, while also increasing gain and reducing dead time. This paper will describe the development and characterization of a 1024 pixel linear array with 25 micron pitch and readout rate of over 45,000 lines per second and the resulting camera. This camera will also have application for machine vision inspection of hot glass globs, for sorting of fast moving agricultural materials and for quality control of pharmaceutical products.

Camera for laser beam profiling from 1.0 to 2.0 microns wavelength with an indium gallium arsenide based focal plane array

Extended wavelength InGaAs material is ideal for laser beam profiling applications from 1 micron to 2 microns wavelength. We report on a focal plane array and camera designed specifically for this application. The format of the camera is 320 x 256 pixels on a 25 micron pitch, and the operation is snapshot exposure with a 16 ms exposure time. The camera may be triggered for synchronization with laser pulses and has a 60 Hz maximum readout rate. Two challenges are encountered with extended wavelength InGaAs material compared to lattice matched material. The first is lower quantum efficiency at the shorter wavelengths due to transitional buffer layers that absorb at the shorter wavelengths. The second is the larger dark current caused by lattice mismatch between the InP substrate and the absorption layers. Neither challenge is a problem for laser beam profiling, since a large energy or power is available from the source. To accommodate the dark current, a gate modulated (GMOD) readout circuit is used, where the continuously variable capacity is increased to several million electrons. Both CW and pulsed illumination linearity are good, allowing accurate profiling. The temperature of the focal plane array is held near room temperature with a thermoelectric cooler for stability. To provide a corrected image, nonuniformity corrections for offset and gain are stored in the camera.

A customizable commercial miniaturized 320×256 indium gallium arsenide shortwave infrared camera

The design and performance of a commercial short-wave-infrared (SWIR) InGaAs microcamera engine is presented. The 0.9-to-1.7 micron SWIR imaging system consists of a room-temperature-TEC-stabilized, 320x256 (25 μm pitch) InGaAs focal plane array (FPA) and a high-performance, highly customizable image-processing set of electronics. The detectivity, D*, of the system is greater than 1013 cm-&sqrt;Hz/W at 1.55 μm, and this sensitivity may be adjusted in real-time over 100 dB. It features snapshot-mode integration with a minimum exposure time of 130 μs. The digital video processor provides real time pixel-to-pixel, 2-point dark-current subtraction and non-uniformity compensation along with defective-pixel substitution. Other features include automatic gain control (AGC), gamma correction, 7 preset configurations, adjustable exposure time, external triggering, and windowing. The windowing feature is highly flexible; the region of interest (ROI) may be placed anywhere on the imager and can be varied at will. Windowing allows for high-speed readout enabling such applications as target acquisition and tracking; for example, a 32x32 ROI window may be read out at over 3500 frames per second (fps). Output video is provided as EIA170-compatible analog, or as 12-bit CameraLink-compatible digital. All the above features are accomplished in a small volume < 28 cm3, weight < 70 g, and with low power consumption < 1.3 W at room temperature using this new microcamera engine. Video processing is based on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) platform with a soft-embedded processor that allows for ease of integration/addition of customer-specific algorithms, processes, or design requirements. The camera was developed with the high-performance, space-restricted, power-conscious application in mind, such as robotic or UAV deployment.

Indium gallium arsenide photodiode arrays for optical communications

Indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) photodiode arrays are used in a wide variety of optical communications-related applications. Two-dimensional arrays are used for laser beam profiling, assembly and performance monitoring of optical switches and add-drop multiplexers, and simultaneous aiming/detection for free space communications. Linear arrays integrated with self- scanned readout integrated circuits are used for the spectroscopic monitoring of WDM source arrays and for dynamic gain flattening of erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs). Parallel output arrays are coupled with arrayed waveguide gratings (AWGs) both for power monitoring of WDM source arrays and direct detection of high-speed signals. In this paper we will summarize the status of InGaAs array technology and describe the various applications in detail.