ABSTRACT
Through the detectors, light signal will be converted to an electrical signal and then be processed by a voltage monitoring or current monitoring circuit. In wide bandwidth light, infrared (IR) light was extensively used from military to nonmilitary purposes. In all IR imaging systems, it was mainly composed of optical components, including lens, mirrors, and IR sensors. The chapter presents the design and experimental results of a multiwalled carbon nanotubes-based IR detector ROIC system. There are two requirements of readout circuits of a carbon nanotube (CNT)-based IR detector: one is the high resolution to a picoampere scale; the other is no bias or bias modulation on the detector. There are two types of CNT detector signal monitoring, including voltage monitoring and current monitoring. While the photovoltaic effect is not as great as a silicon photodiode in a CNT-based IR detector, it can generate a nanoampere-scale photocurrent without voltage changes.
