温差致冷红外探测器

Thermoelectrically cooled infrared detectors

高性能探测器是军事、医疗和工业领域光电子设备的心脏.但由于红外光子的能量较低,要求制作红外探测器的半导体材料具有窄的禁带宽度.因此,常温下热涨落效应的半导体中产生的载流子会使探测器噪声增加.温差致冷红外光探测器是将微型半导体致冷器与探测器集成在一起的新型器件,由于可工作在极低的温度下,因此大大提高了探测灵敏度.本文论述了这种红外探测器的结构和工作原理.

High-performance semiconductor infrared detectors are at the heart of various electro-optical system used in military, industry and medicine. The detector materials used to fabricating IR detectors must have small-band-gap because of low-energy IR photons. In this case, however, electron carries are more easily generated in the semi-conductor from random thermal excitation in the room temperature and degrade performance through increasing dark current and noise. Thermoelectrically cooled infrared detectors are a new device in which a micro-cooler is packed with detector and lower environmental temperature ensure high sensitivity of IR detectors. In this paper, the structure and operating principle of this IR detector are reviewed.