MULTICAM: a miniature cryogenic camera for infrared detection

Abstract

There is an emerging demand for compact infrared instruments, imagers and/or spectrometers, integrated on ground or air vehicles for spatial and spectral data collection. To reach this goal, technological barriers have already been overcome, leading to the development of infrared focal plane arrays (IRFPAs) for high-performance applications (megapixel format, bispectral technology) but also for low-cost and high-volume manufacturing (technology of uncooled micro-bolometers). The next step is to reduce the optics and make it compatible with the successful IRFPAs fabrication technology. This paper presents MULTICAM, a small cryogenic infrared camera. This optical system is composed of multi-level arrays of microlenses integrated in the cryostat and inspired from invertebrate compound eyes. First experimental results will be presented.

Artificial compound eye: a survey of the state-of-the-art

“…The prototype of (Tanida et al 2000) planar artificial compound eyes is either apposition compound eye or superposition compound eye. To date, a lot of planar artificial compound eyes have been proposed (Tanida et al 2000;Duparré et al 2004b, a;Duparré and Wippermann 2006;Duparré and Völkel 2006;Duparré et al 2005dDuparré et al , a, 2004cDuparré et al , 2005bWippermann et al 2005;Brückner et al 2007Brückner et al , 2008Druart et al 2008;Brückner et al 2010a, b;Bräuer et al 2011;Brückner et al 2011;Meyer et al 2011;Stollberg et al 2009;Duparré et al 2008;Druart et al 2009;Di et al 2009;Leitel et al 2010;Ueno et al 2013;Brückner et al 2010c;Ogata et al 1994;Carr et al 2004;Hornsey et al 2004;Kinoshita et al 2005;Christensen et al 2006;Wippermann et al 2006;Yang et al 2009;Sieler et al 2010;Fallah and Karimzadeh 2010;Dunkel et al 2014;Belay et al 2014). In what follows, several typical planar artificial compound eyes are selected to discuss the design principle.…”

“…The artificial neural superposition eye exhibits a set of 3 × 3 pixels underneath each microlens, but the arrangement does not overcome the main disadvantages of the apposition principle. Later, inspired by the compound eye of a parasite of wasps called Xenos Peckii, Druart et al came up with the idea to read out the completely partial image within each imaging channel, and then an imaging pre-processing method is used to form a full high resolution image (Druart et al 2008). Brückner et al followed this idea and presented an artificial compound eye system called eCley (Electronic Cluster Eye) (Brückner et al 2010a, b;Bräuer et al 2011;Brückner et al 2011).…”

Integration of advanced optical functions near the focal plane array: first steps toward the on-chip infrared camera

“…First, we have developed a miniature multichannel camera called MULTICAM, working in the [3 µm; 5 µm] spectral range [10]. The architecture is made of multiple identical telescopes with parallel optical axes; thus each channel images the same scene.…”

Design strategies to simplify and miniaturize imaging systems

“…The angular resolution instantaneous field of view quantifies the ability of the optical system to distinguish small details [28]. It is linked to the maximum spatial frequency ν max that can be resolved by the optical system.…”