Early research works on the material as infrared detector were carried out during the 1930s and the first useful devices were processed by Germans, Americans and British during and just after World War II.

[5] As a sensitive material to the infrared radiation, PbSe has unique and outstanding characteristics: it can detect IR radiation of wavelengths from 1.5 to 5.2 μm (mid-wave infrared window, abbreviated MWIR – in some special conditions it is possible to extend its response beyond 6 μm), it has a high detectivity at room temperature (uncooled performance), and due to its quantum nature, it also presents a very fast response, which makes this material an excellent candidate as detector of low cost high speed infrared imagers.

Subsequent theoretical work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA predicted that its p-type performance could equal or exceed that of the sister compound, lead telluride.

[11] It was developed in USA during the '60s and is based on the precipitation of the active material on a substrate rinsed in a controlled bath with selenourea, lead acetate, potassium iodine and other compounds.

Because of technological limitations associated to this method of processing, nowadays the biggest CBD PbSe detector format commercialized is a linear array of 1x256 elements.

In fact, this has been the most important milestone in the last decades concerning the manufacturing of PbSe detectors, as it has opened the technology to the market of uncooled MWIR high-resolution imaging cameras with high frame rates and reduced costs.