Presented by Terence Fisher

Wed, May 6, 2026 11:00A EDT

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About This Webinar

Infrared photoconductors remain widely used in sensing systems for scientific instrumentation, aerospace imaging, and defense applications. Despite their importance, interpreting the electrical behavior of these detectors can be challenging because device performance emerges from the complex interaction of carrier transport, recombination processes, and electric field distributions within the semiconductor. This webinar presents a physics-based digital twin framework designed to simulate the internal operation of infrared photoconductors. The model solves the coupled semiconductor transport equations that govern carrier motion and electrostatics, enabling detailed analysis of current flow and electric field distributions throughout the detector structure.

Key physical mechanisms incorporated into the model include the following:

• Drift-diffusion carrier transport.
• Field-dependent carrier mobility.
• Shockley-Read-Hall recombination.
• Auger recombination processes.
• Thermal carrier generation.
• Device geometry and contact boundary conditions.

These mechanisms allow the digital twin to reproduce experimentally observed detector behavior, including nonlinear current-voltage characteristics and spatial electric field distributions inside the device. The webinar will also examine how noise mechanisms arise from underlying physical processes. Thermal noise and generation-recombination noise are analyzed within the context of carrier dynamics, providing a physics-based interpretation of detector noise performance. Although examples will focus on HgCdTe photoconductors, the modeling framework is general and applicable to a wide range of semiconductor detector technologies. Attendees will gain practical insight into how physics-based modeling can help to interpret detector measurements, understand device behavior, and support the development of next-generation infrared sensing systems.

Who should attend:
Infrared detector engineers, photonics system designers, optoelectronics engineers, semiconductor device researchers, and imaging system developers working with HgCdTe and other infrared detector materials. The webinar is designed for industry engineers and graduate researchers interested in practical physics-based device modeling and interpretation of detector measurements.

About the presenter:

Terence Fisher is an infrared photonics specialist focused on semiconductor detector physics, modeling, and experimental characterization. His work centers on understanding the physical mechanisms governing infrared photodetector performance, including carrier transport, recombination processes, and noise behavior in semiconductor devices. In addition to developing physics-based digital twin simulation frameworks for infrared detectors, Fisher has practical experience working with HgCdTe photoconductors and other infrared detector technologies, including device testing, measurement setup development, and detector performance analysis. His work involves interpreting detector behavior through both experimental measurements and physics-based modeling. Fisher is the founder of Brooks Photonics, where he provides consulting and technical services focused on infrared detector characterization, measurement systems, and semiconductor device modeling for infrared sensing applications.