Broad Band 8-12microns High Sensitivity GaAs Quantum Well Infrared Detector.

Broad band GaAs/Al sub x Ga sub (1-x) As quantum well infrared detectors grown by molecular beam epitaxy have been demonstrated which are sensitive over the lambda = 8-12microns atmosphere window spectral region. These are the first quantum well detectors peaked at lambda = 10microns and have a bandwidth (DELTA nu / nu) which is 3 times larger than our earlier lambda = 8microns device. The detectivity, D*, is background limited at T = 50K with D* = 1 X 10 sup (10) cm sqrt Hz /W, and a noise equivalent temperature of NE DELTA = 0.01 K.