$4 Million DARPA Grant for Ultra-Small, Fast, High-Resolution Infrared Sensors
Matteo Rinaldi, professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), and director of the Northeastern SMART research center, is leading a $4 million DARPA grant under the DARPA Optomechanical Thermal Imaging (OpTIm) program. The project will focus on the development of Nano-opto-mechanical Piezoelectric Resonant Infrared-sensitive Metamaterials for Quantum-Limited Photodetection. The team aims to demonstrate an ultra-small (100 μm2) spectrally selective Infrared detector pixel with two orders of magnitude higher resolution and speed than any state-of-the-art technology.
The infrared sensors proposed will be enabled by innovation in infrared sensing, piezoelectric materials, MEMS resonators, non-linear dynamics, parametric systems, low-noise oscillators, metamaterials, optomechanics, nanofabrication and artificial intelligence/machine learning-powered designs and manufacturing. The project will use the Northeastern SMART research center’s unique nanomanufacturing capabilities for piezoelectric nano systems on 200mm wafers.
In addition to Rinaldi, the interdisciplinary team includes Cristian Cassella, assistant professor of ECE, Yongmin Liu, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, jointly appointed in ECE, Benjamin Davaji, assistant professor of ECE, Zhenyun Qian, research assistant professor of ECE, and Siddhartha Ghosh, assistant professor of ECE.