Uncooled 10μm FPA development at DRS

Abstract

The benefit of 10um pitch uncooled detectors is demonstrated through the use of image emulation. The image emulation uses the theoretical image of point sources for 10um wavelength radiation, then integrates the energy from multiple sources which fall into FPA pixel areas and produces representative images. Arrays of pixel pitches of 25um, 17um, 12um, 10um, 5um, and 4um are included. These images, and movies when presented live at the conference, make evident why array pitches smaller than the wavelength of radiation are useful and being considered. While the argument for sub-wavelength pixel pitches is already made by other authors, this representation might be clearer to a larger audience. Representative images, and movies when presented live at the conference, from a DRS 1280x1024 format, 10um pitch array are shown. Details of the DRS 10um pitch UFPA family are shown.