PFI-TT: Cost-Effective OLED-based Infrared Sensor for Commercial Implementation

该项目由PFI计划和建立计划共同资助，以刺激竞争研究（EPSCoR）。这个创新技术转化伙伴关系（PFI-TT）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发具有成本效益和高分辨率的传感器，使用一种称为有机发光二极管（OLED）的创新半导体结构。目前，许多廉价的硅基图像传感器用于各种消费类相机，但这些传感器仅限于人眼能看到的东西。基于砷化铟镓（InGaAs）的红外图像传感器没有这种限制，但这些传感器价格昂贵且分辨率不足，阻碍了它们在家用产品中的应用。到目前为止，还没有适用于广泛商业应用的经济实惠的红外传感器技术。提出的具有成本效益的基于oled的红外传感器技术将消除所有这些限制，使该技术应用于家用产品成为可能。该项目旨在利用独特的光学读出集成电路（ROIC）集成方法开发一种创新的基于oled的红外传感器原型。传统的基于ingaas的短波红外（SWIR）图像技术价格在1万美元以上，像素分辨率限制在100万像素左右，而基于oled的红外传感器结构将使这些传感器更便宜（500美元），分辨率更高（1亿像素）。红外传感器将具有实现这些目标的独特功能：(1)无外延胶体量子点（CQDs）将用作SWIR敏感材料，(2)具有CQDs的SWIR-to-visible上转换OLED将直接将SWIR图像转换为可见图像。在这种独特的SWIR图像传感器结构中，廉价的现成可见图像传感器将用于光学读出。这种革命性的SWIR图像传感器将通过简单地在廉价的图像传感器上仅光学（非电子）堆叠SWIR敏感OLED来制造。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project is jointly funded by PFI Program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project is to develop cost-effective and high-resolution sensors using an innovative semiconductor structure called organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Currently many inexpensive silicon-based image sensors are used in various consumer cameras, but these are limited to what the human eye can see. Indium Gallium Arsenide (InGaAs) based infrared image sensors do not have this limitation, but these are expensive and lack resolution quality, preventing them from being implemented into household products. Until now, there has been no affordable infrared sensor technology suitable for a wide range of commercial applications. The proposed cost-effective OLED-based infrared sensor technology will eliminate all of these limitations, making implementation of this technology into household products possible. The proposed project aims to develop an innovative OLED-based infrared sensor prototype using the unique optical readout integrated circuit (ROIC) integration approach. Unlike traditional InGaAs-based short-wave infrared (SWIR) image technology with prices of $10,000 and more, and limited pixel resolution of about 1 megapixel, the proposes OLED-based infrared sensor structure will make these cheaper ( $500) and high-resolution ( 100 megapixels). The infrared sensors will have unique features to achieve these goals: (1) epitaxial-free colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) will be used as the SWIR sensitive material, and (2) the SWIR-to-visible up-conversion OLED with CQDs will directly convert SWIR images to visible images. In this unique SWIR image sensor structure, inexpensive off-the-shelf visible image sensors will be used for optical readout. This revolutionary SWIR image sensor will be fabricated by simply stacking a SWIR sensitive OLED only optically (not electronically) on an inexpensive image sensor.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.