A low-cost uncooled infrared microbolometer detector in standard CMOS technology

Study of performance degradation in Titanium microbolometer IR detectors due to elevated heating

“…Microbolometer Infrared (IR) detectors, in spite of being less sensitive compared with the low bandgap semiconductor based cooled IR detectors, provide the attractive option in variety of commercial applications due to their room temperature operation capability, ruggedness, compactness, fabrication ease and low cost [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. These are the thermal detectors that work on the principle of temperature increase by heat absorption that ultimately results in the resistance change.…”

Silicon-integrated uncooled infrared detectors: Perspectives on thin films and microstructures

“…In a recent innovation, a Si n-well suspended by two arms was used to support an absorber film of poly-Si or an interconnect metal. 48 Poly-Si detectors show improved responsivity (2000 A/W), detectivity (D* ϭ 2.6 ϫ 10 8 cmHz 1/2 /W), and noise equivalent detector temperature (NEDT ϭ 0.2 K) compared to earlier low-cost CMOS processes with thermoelectric-based detectors. A closed-loop version of the suspended n-well detector has been made with two P Metal Oxide Semiconductor (PMOS) devices, a thermistor and a controllable heat-balancing resistor (a transistor in saturation bias).…”

Color-Selective CMOS Photodiodes Based on Junction Structures and Process Recipes

“…Owing to the junction between n-and p-substrate deeper than that between p + and n-, the n-/p-sub junction is more responsive in the infrared region (>800nm) than the p + /n-junction. Accordingly, the n-/p-sub photodiode can serve as an infrared detector as well as a visible light detector [27], [28]. A p + /n-/p-sub photodiode with a particular recipe that enables the whole p + layer to be fully depleted, can function like a pinned photodiode to improve the sensitivity at short wavelengths and reduce the thermal noise at its surface [29].…”