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Nanostructures for Dislocation Blocking in Infrare

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Army
Contract: W911NF-08-C-0069
Agency Tracking Number: A074-006-0026
Amount: $749,995.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: STTR
Solicitation Topic Code: A07-T006
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: 2007
Award Year: 2008
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): 2008-08-25
Award End Date (Contract End Date): 2009-08-24
Small Business Information
590 Territorial Drive, Suite B
Bolingbrook, IL 60440
United States
DUNS: 068568588
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Ramana Bommena
 Engineer
 (630) 771-0203
 rbommena@epir.com
Business Contact
 Sivalingam Sivanantha
Title: President
Phone: (630) 771-0201
Email: ssivananthan@epir.com
Research Institution
 UNIV. OF ILLINOIS AT CHIGACO
 Luis R Vargas
 
1737 West Polk Street (MC 672) 304 Administrative Office Bldg
Chicago, IL 60612
United States

 (312) 996-2862
 Nonprofit College or University
Abstract

Current state of the art LWIR and VLWIR focal plane arrays are typically fabricated with HgCdTe epilayers grown on expensive and limited-size CdZnTe substrates. The transition to silicon-based substrates, which are much cheaper and available in large sizes, has been hindered by high dislocation densities in HgCdTe epilayers resulting from lattice mismatch-induced strain. We propose the novel approach of nanopatterning silicon-based substrates to exploit strain relaxation in 3-dimensions before growing high quality CdTe buffer layers and subsequent LWIR HgCdTe epilayers. The selective area epitaxy of CdTe at the nanoscale followed by lateral epitaxial overgrowth and then coalescence, as demonstrated in Phase I, will result in high quality CdTe layers. Strategies to improve the coalescence of CdTe on the nanopatterned substrates and resolve thermal mismatch strain by novel nanoscale geometries will be developed and implemented in the proposed Phase II program. LWIR HgCdTe will be grown on silicon-based nanopatterned substrates by molecular beam epitaxy and extensive material and interface characterizations will be performed to analyze the advantages of nanoscale patterning. Single element detectors and test arrays will be fabricated from the HgCdTe epilayers and characterized extensively for electrical and optical performance.

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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