Abstract

Our group has been working with Advanced Photonix Inc. to develop large-area (16 mm) avalanche photodiodes (APD) for use in blue-green oceanographic pulsed lidar systems. One facet of this development program has been to develop a pixilated-imaging APD from the large-area device. Imaging detectors allow lidar systems to do both target detection and target classification with the same receiver. Advanced Photonix Inc. has developed a novel reverse-etching process that maintains the active area of the original large-area device. This technique has been used to manufacture an 8 × 8 pixilated large-area APD array. Work is currently under way to develop higher resolution arrays.

© 1995 Optical Society of America