Substrate-Removed HgCdTe-Based Focal-Plane Arrays for Short-Wavelength Infrared Astronomy

Removal of the CdZnTe substrate offers several performance benefits for near-infrared (NIR, 1.7 μm) and short-wave infrared (SWIR, 2.5 μm) focal-plane arrays (FPAs). Among these are visible wavelength detection, improved infrared sensitivity and uniformity, and greatly reduced susceptibility to the effects of ionizing radiation. Data for substrate-removed NIR FPAs fabricated for the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) upgrade to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are presented, including detailed data from delivered units and summary trends for additional units. The WFC3 flight FPA is expected to improve discovery speed by 3.5–120× over current HST instruments. For SWIR FPAs, selected results are presented from the 16 megapixel mosaic delivered to Observatories of Carnegie Institution in Washington which serve as an example of the current state of the art.