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US 8,134,141 B2Granted
Detector with tunable spectral response
AssigneeStc.Unm
InventorsSanjay Krishna, J. Scott Tyo, Majeed M. Hayat, Sunil Raghavan, Unal Sakoglu
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Abstract
A semiconductor detector has a tunable spectral response. These detectors may be used with processing techniques that permit the creation of “synthetic” sensors that have spectral responses that are beyond the spectral responses attainable by the underlying detectors. For example, the processing techniques may permit continuous and independent tuning of both the center wavelength and the spectral resolution of the synthesized spectral response. Other processing techniques can also generate responses that are matched to specific target signatures.
Claims16
A spectrally tunable detector comprising:
- a first barrier region disposed on a first conductive region;
- an absorbing region that is based at least in part on intersubband transitions of quantum states, wherein the absorbing region comprises:
- a first quantum well region disposed on the first barrier region,
- a quantum dot region disposed on the first quantum well region, and
- a second quantum well region disposed on the quantum dot region,
- wherein the second quantum well region has a different material composition than the first quantum well region, and wherein the different material composition cause a vertical asymmetry in a local potential seen by carriers,
- a second barrier region positioned on the second quantum well region, wherein the first barrier region and the second barrier region contribute to the vertical in the local potential;
- and
- a second conductive region disposed on the second barrier region, wherein both the first conductive region and the second conductive region comprise a highly doped semiconductor material having a same conductivity type.
6 more elements
A spectrally tunable sensor that can be tuned to synthesize any of a set of target spectral responses, the spectrally tunable sensor comprising:
- a detector comprising:
- a first barrier region disposed on a first conductive region;
- an absorbing region that is based at least in part on intersubband transitions of quantum states, wherein the absorbing region comprises:
- a first quantum well region disposed on the first barrier region,
- a quantum dot region disposed on the first quantum well region, and
- a second quantum well region disposed on the quantum dot region,
- wherein the second quantum well region has a different material composition than the first quantum well region, and wherein the different material composition cause a vertical asymmetry in a local potential seen by carriers,
- a second barrier region positioned on the second quantum well region, wherein the first barrier region and the second barrier region contribute to the vertical asymmetry in the local potential;
- and
- a second conductive region disposed on the second barrier region, wherein both the first conductive region and the second conductive region comprise a highly doped semiconductor material having a same conductivity type;
- a controller coupled to the detector that tunes the detector to different basis spectral responses;
- and
- a processor coupled to the detector that combines outputs from the detector as tuned to the basis spectral responses in a manner to synthesize a pre-selected target spectral response.
10 more elements
A spectrally tunable detector comprising:
- a first barrier region disposed on a first conductive region;
- an absorbing region that is based at least in part on intersubband transitions of quantum states, the absorbing region positioned on the first barrier region, wherein the absorbing region comprises:
- a plurality of sets of regions with each set comprising:
- a first quantum well region,
- a quantum dot region disposed on the first quantum well region, and
- a second quantum well region disposed on the quantum dot region,
- wherein the second quantum well region has a different material composition than the first quantum well region, and wherein the different material composition cause a vertical asymmetry in a local potential seen by carriers, and
- a barrier region disposed to separate each set of regions from an adjacent set of regions;
- a second barrier region positioned on the second quantum well region of the absorbing region, wherein the first barrier region and the second barrier region have different material compositions and the first barrier region and the second barrier region contribute to the vertical asymmetry in the local potential;
- and
- a second conductive region disposed on the second barrier region, wherein both the first conductive region and the second conductive region comprise a highly doped semiconductor material having a same conductivity type.
8 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.