Division-of-focal-plane spectral-polarization imaging sensor

Abstract

We have designed, fabricated and tested a division-of-focal-plane spectral-polarization imaging sensor by the monolithic integration of aluminum nanowire linear polarization filters to a spectrally sensitive CMOS imaging array. The sensor has a pixel pitch of 5.0 µm and an imaging array size of 168 by 256 pixel elements. Each pixel comprises three layers of vertically stacked photodetectors, each of which has a particular spectral sensitivity. This sensor is novel in that it can perceive co-registered spectral and polarimetric information in real time. In this paper, we present both a theoretical overview of the operation of this imaging sensor as well as experimental measurements from the fabricated sensor.