interest for detection due to its propagation characteristics through the atmosphere the conventional detector 10 has large area detector elements such as element 12 for capturing incident infrared radiation the detector element 12 has typical length and width dimensions of 50 microns the 50 micron dimensions are substantially greater than the 8 12 micron wavelength of the intercepted radiation this large area detector configuration serves to capture the incident radiation over areas which approximately correspond to the size of a pixel picture element in an image each of the detector elements such as 12 produces a pixel signal and these signals are used in combination to produce an image an infrared radiation detector 14 in accordance with the present invention is illustrated in fig2 the detector 14 has a periodic parallel pattern of photoconductive or photovoltaic bandgap detector elements 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 and 30 these elements must be made of a radiation absorbing material a preferred material for these detector elements is mercury cadmium telluride which is described as hg sub 1 x cd sub x te where a selected value of x is 0 2 the detector elements 16 30 are joined together at opposite.