Professor John Prineas and the University of Iowa have been given a subaward as part of a contract entitled “Metasurface-Coupled Superlattices for LWIR Imaging” from the US Missile Defense Agency and led by Sivananthan Labs in Bolingbrook, Ill. The subaward is for $419,958 over two years.

Long-wave infrared (LWIR) thermal cameras are a critically important imaging tool in a range of applications in medicine, the environment, astronomy, and defense. The most advanced and high-performing LWIR cameras are made from HgCdTe, but these materials have a number of drawbacks such as high cost, and various materials issues, which has motivated the development of thermal cameras based on antimonide superlattice LWIR materials. Lower absorption, shorter carrier lifetimes, and short diffusion lengths in these materials have limited performance of thermal cameras based on them. In this work, we seek to develop antimonide superlattice LWIR detectors with improved performance by improving carrier lifetime and enhancing absorption with metamaterials.