Monolithic Graphene–CMOS Broadband (UV-LWIR) Focal Plane Arrays for target detection in low-light conditions

The Navy continues to field multiple seeker technologies to detect, identify and engage targets in multi-domain operations through obscurants. However, you cannot detect something you cannot see. Each wavelength range provide unique opportunity to glean information. Currently, for each wavelength range a distinct material system technology is required: AlGaN for UV, analog devices for NIR, InGaAs for short wavelength infrared (SWIR), HgCdTe (MCT) and III-V strain-layer superlattice (SLS) detectors for MWIR-LWIR. In addition, the incumbent detector technologies — for example indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs). This topic seeks to retire the principal risks that stand between these demonstrations and a fieldable naval imager: (1) graphene material quality and uniformity at the wafer scale — carrier mobility, Dirac-point control, low hysteresis, and low defect density (e.g., Raman D-to-G intensity ratio) held tight across full wafers and lot to lot; (2) repeatable, high-yield BEOL transfer, encapsulation, patterning, and contacting of graphene on CMOS read-out wafers; (3) absorber sensitization and passivation that deliver uniform, stable, low-noise broadband response; and (4) an imaging FPA meeting the noise-equivalent irradiance, dynamic range, frame rate, operability, and stability required for naval ISR. Proposers should target a substantial increase in integrated-device carrier mobility (goal approaching 10,000 cm²/V·s), tight pixel-to-pixel uniformity, and a manufacturable process flow with a clear path to pilot-scale production. photodiode arrays for SWIR are hybridized to a silicon read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) by indium-bump flip-chip bonding. This is a mature approach but constrained by high unit cost, a limited domestic foundry base, pixel pitches that are difficult to scale below roughly 15 µm, array formats limited by hybridization yield, and a spectral response that typically cuts off near 1,700 nm. These constraints limit the resolution, affordability, and proliferation of imagers across the size-, weight-, power-, and cost-constrained (SWaP-c) platforms.