What is an MCT (Mercury Cadmium Telluride) Sensor?

Mercury Cadmium Telluride (also known as MCT or HgCdTe) is a type of thermal camera sensor material. MCT sensors are a type of cooled thermal sensor with low SWaP characteristics. The low SWaP nature of these sensors has made them a top pick among space agencies where payload weight is critical. Missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the famous Hubble Deep Space Telescope both use MCT sensor arrays.

The unique properties of MCT make them tunable in the MWIR wavelength range of 2.0µm – 5.4µm. A downside of MCT sensors is that they must be cryogenically cooled. However, they do not have to be cooled as much as InSb sensors.

Infiniti can use MCT or InSb sensors but for many applications we prefer to use the latest technology for our cameras which is our X-hot material as it provides many of the benefits of InSb and MCT but with improved reliability. X-Hot also requires 30% less cooling compared to MCT with improved resolution up to 5MP and smaller pixel pitch of 5μm and 10μm making it an ideal technology for long-range surveillance and defense applications.

Learn more about thermal imaging: https://www.infinitioptics.com/technology/thermal-imaging