Short-wave infrared imaging (900–2000 nm) requires sensors that efficiently convert low-energy photons to electrical signals. Traditional SWIR sensors (InGaAs) are performant but expensive. Quantum-dot photodiodes offer a different tradeoff: lower cost, tunable spectral response, and manufacturability on silicon-compatible processes.

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How quantum-dot SWIR works (high level):

1. Quantum dots are semiconductor nanocrystals tuned to absorb SWIR wavelengths.

2. Absorption creates electron-hole pairs which are collected by a readout circuit.

3. On-chip amplification and noise mitigation preserve weak signals common in SWIR scenes.

4. An image pipeline performs denoising, flat-field correction, and radiometric scaling so vision algorithms get consistent inputs.

 

Advantages vs legacy detectors:

• Cost and scalability for volume production

• Tunable response to specific SWIR bands for application-specific contrast

• Easier integration into compact, low-power camera modules

 

Practical tips for engineers integrating SWIR:

• Match optics to sensor spectral bands (coatings and AR are critical)

• Use active illumination where scene radiance is low

• Perform per-pixel flat-field correction