Advances in mid-infrared detection and imaging: a key issues review

It has been over 200 years since people recognized the presence of infrared radiation, and developed methods to capture this signal. However, current material systems and technologies for infrared detections have not met the increasing demand for high performance infrared detectors/cameras, with each system having intrinsic drawbacks. Type-II InAs/GaSb superlattice has been recently considered as a promising candidate for the next generation of infrared detection and imaging. Type-II superlattice is a man-made crystal structure, consisting of multiple quantum wells placed next to each other in a controlled way such that adjacent quantum wells can interact. The interaction between multiple quantum wells offers an additional degree of freedom in tailoring the material's properties. Another advantage of type-II superlattice is the experimental benefit of inheriting previous research on material synthesis and device fabrication of bulk semiconductors. It is the combination of these two unique strengths of type-II superlattice-novel physics and easy manipulation-that has enabled unprecedented progress in recent years. In this review, we will describe historical development, and current status of type-II InAs/GaSb superlattice for advanced detection and imaging in the mid-infrared regime (lambda = 3-5 mu m).