Aerius Photonics and its partners propose the development of a high resolution, radiation hardened 3-D FLASH Focal Plane Array (FPA), with performance expected to be > 6Mrad total incident dose (TID), and will be able to perform at extremely low temperatures (-230C) without the need for a warm box. This TID performance at cold temperatures is the result of utilizing silicon germanium (SiGe) bipolar technology for the ROIC implementation, and will be the largest SiGe imaging ROIC ever designed and demonstrated. This ROIC will be hybridized with an appropriate selected detector array to produce a FPA of unprecedented TID performance. The TID performance will allow for reduced size, weight, and power (SWaP) for lunar and deep space instruments, thus saving fuel for the mission. The resulting FPA can be utilized in instruments for the Europa-Jupiter System Mission (EJSM), including the near-IR imaging spectrometer, and wide angle, high resolution camera (HRC). It can also be used in flash lidar applications for 3-D mapping to help with hazard avoidance, and for a rover operating during the lunar night in one of the permanently dark polar craters, where optical (passive) cameras could not operate.
