GREENBELT, Md., 26 July 2005. Officials of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., are looking to Adtech Optics Inc. in City of Industry, Calif., for crucial optoelectronic components for space-based laser radar systems.
Adtech will provide NASA Goddard with indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) photon-counting avalanche photodiode array modules for imaging laser radar (lidar) systems.
NASA announced the agreement with Adtech on July 22. No financial details were available.
Imaging lidar is a crucial instrument for 3-D imaging necessary in space docking and assembling under NASA's new exploration vision, NASA officials say. One of the key components for imaging lidar is the InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode array.
Adtech experts will design and build 50-micron 64-by-64-pixel InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiode arrays with 100-micron pitch withy reliable edge termination, NASA officials say.
NASA officials say Adtech is the only vendor that meets government requirements for this job.
