Page 239 - Chalcogenide Glasses for Infrared Optics
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AMI Infrar ed Crystalline Materials 215
CdTe strips
3"
2" Graphite
Graphite strip for end piece
Saw planes
FIGURE 9.3 Formation of large area mosaic CdTe substrates.
9.3 AMI DARPA-Funded Large Plate Process
Some 10 years later, in 1981, the author met with his ex-TI colleague
Dick Reynolds for lunch in Washington, D.C. Dick Reynolds had
become the deputy director for DARPA and was heavily involved in
building support for the production of many thousands of HgCdTe
detector arrays that would be needed in the very near future. Con-
ventional methods of producing CdTe for substrates were much too
slow. What was needed was a new approach to produce large plates
of CdTe. Together they decided that the AMI process for producing
large plates of high-purity chalcogenide glasses could be modified to
produce CdTe plates with increased size and purity. A plan was made
and a proposal written for an effort to produce plates of 6-, 8-, and
10-in diameter. The first contract was DARPA-funded MDA903-82-
C-0159 followed by DARPA Contract No. DAAG-29-85-C0004 funded