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Increasing shortwave infrared (SWIR) sensor performance requirements have pushed traditional HOT detector technologies to their limits. Collins Aerospace Princeton, a Raytheon Technologies (RTX) Company, has answered this call by looking beyond dark current reduction, and leveraging its onshore foundry capabilities to develop unprecedented, high performance photodetector array (PDA) technologies to better serve both passive and active imaging applications. In this work, Collins Aerospace Princeton offers an update on several previously presented, PDA-specific development fronts as well as offering introductions into other novel efforts. In addition to presenting current state-ofthe-art (SOA) InGaAs dark current performance, results related to mesa-structure PDAs for modulation transfer function (MTF) improvement and hybridization capacitance reduction for active imaging noise equivalent irradiance (NEI) improvement are offered. Additionally, focal plane array (FPA) interconnection improvement techniques and results for yield improvement and cost reduction are presented. Finally, results related to the three most advanced and nascent development tracks, avalanche photodiode (APD), PDA metallization and single side bumped FPA, are introduced. Collins Aerospace Princeton’s APD technology is in direct response to the challenging size, weight, and power (SWaP) and NEI performance requirements of active imaging applications. Similarly, Collins Aerospace Princeton’s PDA metallization technology, inspired by silicon-based brethren, facilitates greater integration capability on the PDA itself, which subsequently allows for greater functionality and performance at every pixel location. The most recently developed single side bumped FPA will dramatically improve operability with reduced cost. Overall, these PDA-specific developments represent the most innovative SWIR technology portfolio known to date.
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