Precise annealing of focal plane arrays for optical detection
| DWPI Title: System for facilitating precise annealing of identified defective regions of optical detectors of optical system, has emitter for irradiating defective region of plane array to anneal defective region without annealing non-defective region |
| Abstract: Precise annealing of identified defective regions of a Focal Plane Array (“FPA”) (e.g., exclusive of non-defective regions of the FPA) facilitates removal of defects from an FPA that has been hybridized and/or packaged with readout electronics. Radiation is optionally applied under operating conditions, such as under cryogenic temperatures, such that performance of an FPA can be evaluated before, during, and after annealing without requiring thermal cycling. |
| Use: System for facilitating precise annealing of identified defective regions of FPAs e.g. optical detectors, of optical systems for capturing images or video. Can also be used as a receiver of a radio telescope for spectrometry, LIDAR, wave-front sensing, thermal imaging and medical imaging. |
| Advantage: The system adapts focused annealing techniques to target the defective regions of a sensory layer of the FPA, thus allowing higher temperatures to be applied to the defective regions, and hence allowing increased yield, reduced dark current, and reduced noise in the FPAs. The system facilitates precise annealing of identified defective regions to improve performance of pixels in the defective region without annealing and/or potentially damaging pixels in the non-defective regions of the FPA, without annealing surrounding non-defective regions to repair defects of the hybridized FPA, without damaging a readout integrated circuit (ROIC) layer and without removing the FPA from thermal vacuum, and decreases cost of manufacturing the FPAs and time needed to manufacture FPAs. The system anneals the defective regions in the FPA without damaging electronics packaged with the FPA and without removing the FPA from cryogenic temperatures or disengaging the FPA from communication with the computing device. |
| Novelty: The system has a device adapted to mount and position a focal plane array (FPA) (100) that comprises identified defective regions (112, 114), where the defective region corresponds to a defective pixel and the defective region is less than entirety of the FPA. An emitter (116) irradiates the defective region of the FPA to anneal the defective region without annealing a non-defective region of the FPA. The emitter irradiates the defective region of the FPA while under a thermal vacuum chamber. |
| Filed: 8/12/2015 |
| Application Number: US14824621A |
| Tech ID: SD 12118.2 |
| This invention was made with Government support under Contract No. DE-NA0003525 awarded by the United States Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration. The Government has certain rights in the invention. |
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