Raptor Photonics was set up in September 2006 to design and manufacture high performance cameras for a range of markets including scientific, surveillance, aerospace and industrial. The company has grown year on year and now sells cameras in over 50 countries around the world to a range of instrumentation companies, government bodies, research labs and universities.
In this White Paper, Raptor’s Dr. Geoff Martin, gives an overview of InGaAs based detectors for imaging in SWIR and the benefits of vacuum-based cooling.
Silicon based area detectors (e.g. CCDs or CMOS) are widely used in high performance imaging applications, detecting wavelengths from soft x-ray through to near infrared (NIR). Typically, the quantum efficiency (QE) of these detectors decreases rapidly as the detection wavelength increases further into the NIR region. Above 1100nm, Silicon is transparent and therefore cannot be used to directly detect photons of these wavelengths, however many other materials do have photon sensitivity at wavelengths of 1μm and longer.
Raptor Photonics plans to show its newly-launched Ninox Ultra on booth 5554, an InGaAs camera that is vacuum cooled to -85ᵒC and offers ultra-low dark current for long exposures of up to five minutes.
Combining low read noise of less than 30e- in high gain and dark current of less than 100e/p/s at -80ᵒC, the Ninox Ultra is one of the most sensitive SWIR cameras available on the market. It offers 640x512 resolution and 15µm square pixel pitch and runs at 100Hz in full resolution through a CameraLink interface.
Raptor Photonics will be exhibiting some of its high performance, industrial-grade and extremely rugged ultra-low light digital and analogue cameras at booth B16.
The firm specialises in complete cameras and core engine solutions using CCD, EMCCD, SWIR and LWIR sensor technology. For example, its SWIR cameras use indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) sensors and are capable of imaging from 400nm through to 1,700nm. The extreme low-light capability of Raptor’s cameras makes them ideal for day/night surveillance, homeland security and scientific markets.
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