Semiconductor vidicon and process for fabricating same

Claim 2

A process for fabricating a vidicon target structure including the steps of: a. forming a mask on a surface of an insulating body; b. preferentially etching regions of said body exposed by openings in said mask to form cavities in said body of a controlled geometry; c. depositing a selected metal in said cavities to form a plurality of closely spaced metal pin elements; d. removing selected regiOns of said body beneath the deposited metal to thereby expose both ends of each metal deposit, while leaving said metal deposits rigidly intact within said body; e. providing a photosensitive structure including a plurality of separate PN junction sensor elements spaced apart by predetermined distances; and f. bonding separate pluralities of said metal pin elements to each of said sensor elements, whereby said insulating body serves as an electron shield for regions of said photosensitive structure intermediate said sensor elements while providing electrical coupling of a scanned electron beam to said sensor elements for scanning an optical image focused on said photosensitive structure.

Claim 3

The process defined in claim 1 wherein the preferential etching of said insulating body includes exposing regions thereof to an anisotropic etchant for etching said body on a preferred crystallographic plane to form cavities in said body of a predetermined geometry.

Claim 4

The process defined in claim 1 wherein the bonding of said metal elements to said PN junction sensor elements includes soldering.

Claim 5

The process defined in claim 1 wherein the formation of said metal elements involves electrolessly depositing nickel in said cavities.

Claim 6

The process defined in claim 1 wherein said insulating body is a wafer of suitably doped single crystal silicon semiconductive material and said mask is formed thereon by either thermally growing or vapor depositing silicon dioxide on said silicon wafer.

Claim 7

The process defined in claim 5 wherein the preferential etching of said insulating body includes exposing regions thereof to an anisotropic etchant for etching said body on a preferred crystallographic plane to form cavities in said body of a predetermined geometry, the bonding of said metal elements to said PN junction sensor elements includes soldering, and the formation of said metal elements involves electrolessly depositing nickel in said cavities.

Claim 8

A vidicon target for a camera tube or the like, including in combination: a. a photosensitive structure responsive to an optical image focused thereon for generating carriers, said structure having a plurality of spaced apart PN junction sensor elements adapted for scanning by an electron beam to properly bias said PN junction sensor elements and enable same to be electronically read out during the recreation of said image; b. a insulating contact layer including a plurality of electrically isolated metal pins extending therethrough and spaced therein at a relatively high packing density and at separation distances less than the separation distances of said PN junction sensor elements; and c. means for bonding groups of one or more of said metal pins to each of a plurality of said sensor elements, respectively, whereby electrons are shielded from regions of said photosensitive structure intermediate said sensor elements to avoid the generation of extraneous currents in said structure; said layer operatively bonded to said photosensitive structure using relatively low alignment tolerances.

Claim 9

A vidicon target for a camera tube or the like, including in combination: a. a photosensitive structure responsive to an optical image focused thereon for generating carriers, said structure having a plurality of spaced apart PN junction sensor elements adapted for scanning by an electron beam to properly bias said PN junction sensor elements and enable same to be electronically read out during the recreation of said image; b. a insulating contact layer including a plurality of electrically isolated metal pins extending therethrough and spaced therein at a relatively high packing density and at separation distances less than the separation distances of said PN junction sensor elements; and c. means for bonding groups of one or more of said metal pins to each of a plurality of said sensor elements, respectively, whereby electrons are shielded from regions of said photosensitive structure intermediate said sensor elements to avoid the generation of extraneous currents in said structure; said layer operatively bonded to said photosensitive structure using relatively low alignment tolerances.

Claim 10

The structure defined in claim 7 wherein said contact layer is gold doped single crystal silicon semiconductive material having a resistivity on the order of 108 ohm.centimeter at 77* K and said metal pins are closely spaced nickel contacts extending through said silicon layer.

Claim 11

The structure defined in claim 8 wherein said nickel pins are spaced apart on an average of about 10 microns. 10.The structure defined in claim 8 wherein said photosensitive structure is indium arsenide having PN mesa junctions thereon which comprise the PN junction sensor elements of the structure, and said sensor elements bonded to separate pluralities of said nickel contacts.

Claim 12

The structure defined in claim 10 wherein said nickel pins are spaced apart on an average of about 10 microns.