I-Corps: Assessing the Commercial Potential of an Advanced Oxide Material for Infrared Detection

I-Corps项目将进一步开发用于红外探测的先进氧化物材料。两种技术主导着当前的红外探测器和热成像仪市场：基于半导体的探测器将入射红外光转换成载流子，然后将其放大为电子信号，而微辐射热计则利用热敏特性（通常是电阻）直接将热量转换为电子信号。在这两种情况下，由于每个阵列元件需要多个引线，当今红外阵列探测器的读出电路无法扩展到1-2百万像素以上。研究小组开发了一种使用不同方法进行红外探测的技术。该技术不是将红外光子转换为载流子，而是利用材料在经历热诱导相变时氧化薄膜光学特性的变化。从概念上讲，该技术将取代当今热成像仪背后复杂而昂贵的读出电路，本质上是一个过滤器，可以让廉价的高分辨率相机“看到”红外/热辐射。该团队认为，这项技术将使分辨率超过1000万像素，是市面上最先进的非冷却热成像仪的10倍以上。目前，红外传感器市场在监控、交通、工业监控、能源和医疗保健等领域有望大幅增长。现有的热成像设备是基于笨重的技术，很难扩展到超过1-2百万像素的分辨率。因此，通过高分辨率光学设备实现的成像处理的进步不能应用于红外领域。该技术将通过利用光学材料的技术创新来开发一种革命性的产品：高灵敏度、超高分辨率红外探测器，从而解决高分辨率热成像的未满足需求。该团队认为，该技术可以在广泛的应用领域产生影响，因此具有广泛的经济和社会影响的潜力很高。

This I-Corps project will further develop an advanced oxide material for infrared detection. Two technologies dominate the current market for infrared detectors and thermal imagers: semiconductor-based detectors convert incident infrared light into charge carriers, which are then amplified into an electronic signal, while microbolometers directly transform heat into an electronic signal using a heat-sensitive property (usually resistance). In both cases, the read-out circuitry for today's infrared array detectors simply does not scale beyond 1-2 megapixels due to the need for multiple electric leads at each array element. The research team has developed a technology that uses a different approach to infrared detection. Rather than converting infrared photons to carriers, the technology exploits changes in optical properties of an oxide thin film that occur as the material undergoes a thermally-induced phase transition. Conceptually, the technology would enable the replacement of the complicated and expensive read-out circuitry on the back of today's thermal imagers with what is essentially a filter that allows a cheap high-resolution camera to "see" infrared/thermal radiation. The team believes this technology will enable resolutions of over 10 megapixels, more than 10x the state-of-the-art for commercially available uncooled thermal imagers.The current market for infrared sensors is poised for dramatic growth in areas such as surveillance, transportation, industrial monitoring, energy, and health care. Existing thermal imaging devices are based on unwieldy technologies that have difficulty scaling to resolutions greater than 1-2 megapixels. Thus, advances in imaging processing that have been enabled by high-resolution optical devices cannot be applied to the infrared realm. The technology will address the unmet need of high-resolution thermal imaging by exploiting technological innovations in optical materials to develop a revolutionary product: a high-sensitivity, ultra-high-resolution infrared detector. The team believes the technology could have impact in a wide set of application areas, thus the potential for broad economic and societal impact is high.