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

该项目由PFI计划和既定的激励竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)共同资助。该创新技术转化伙伴关系(PFI-TT)项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发使用称为有机发光二极管(OLED)的创新半导体结构的低成本和高分辨率传感器。目前，许多廉价的硅基图像传感器被用于各种消费相机，但这些传感器仅限于人眼所能看到的范围。基于铟镓砷化物(InGaAs)的红外图像传感器没有这一限制，但这些传感器价格昂贵，缺乏分辨率质量，使其无法应用到家用产品中。到目前为止，还没有一种负担得起的适合广泛商业应用的红外传感器技术。提出的基于OLED的高性价比红外传感器技术将消除所有这些限制，使这项技术有可能应用到家用产品中。该项目旨在开发一种创新的基于OLED的红外传感器原型，采用独特的光学读出集成电路(ROIC)集成方法。与传统的基于InGaAs的短波红外(SWIR)成像技术价格在10,000美元以上，像素分辨率限制在100万像素左右不同，提出的基于OLED的红外传感器结构将使这些技术更便宜(500美元)和高分辨率(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(CQD)将被用作SWIR敏感材料，(2)带有CQD的SWIR上转换OLED将直接将SWIR图像转换为可见光图像。在这种独特的SWIR图像传感器结构中，廉价的现成可见光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将SWIR敏感的OLED仅以光学(而不是电子)方式堆叠在廉价的图像传感器上来制造。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势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.