Development and characterization of a megapixel SWIR imaging system

Abstract

This thesis aims to develop a megapixel SWIR camera electronics and share the knowledge that has been acquired during the design phase as a detailed document that explains the theory and design steps to stand as a reference for academic researchers and engineers who work in this field. Valuable information from many different resources including books, presentations, technical articles, theses, etc. has been compiled and presented in this thesis following the design order. This thesis reviews the nature of light and its detection mechanisms and then concentrates on the idea of developing a product to detect light in the SWIR band. The sensors to detect light in the SWIR band are designed and manufactured in NANOTAM. There is a need to develop both hardware and software to process the sensor outputs which carry information about the captured image to generate a meaningful and useful set of data to be displayed. The objective is to come up with an imaging system that uses the in-house manufactured sensors and digitally visualizes the SWIR band with the best per-formance possible. The components that will make up the imaging system are examined thoroughly to be able to inherit correct design procedures and go for the best performance while preventing costly over-design. Different image sensor types such as CCD, CMOS, InGaAs, etc., and their characteristics and requirements are studied in detail. Analog Front End electronics are designed to add the lowest possible noise and thus degrading the sensor performance minimally. Other electronic circuits such as Thermoelectric Cooler controller, power regulation, FPGA electronics, etc. are designed to meet required operations without causing dis-turbance to Analog Front End electronics. Designs are carried out by abiding by correct PCB design practices which are addressed in this thesis. This way, it is made sure that the sensor performance, which is the limiting factor, is not degraded by the external electronics.