An integrated thermopile structure with high responsivity using any standard CMOS process

Akın, Tayfun; Olgun, Zeynel; Akar, Orhan; Külah, Haluk

doi:10.1016/s0924-4247(98)00038-7

Cited by 33 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…9 However, silicon-based temperature sensors used as thermopile structures must have a large number of couples in order to generate a meaningful output. 10 In addition, although silicon-based thermopiles have been successfully integrated into integrated circuit (IC) processing, [11][12][13] there are still certain impediments to commercial realization of thermopiles. As a substrate, silicon has high thermal conductivity of about 150 W/m/K at room temperature, 14 which compromises the thermopile efficiency.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication and Characterization of Silicon Microchannel Plates as Temperature-Sensing Materials

Shi

Wang

et al. 2011

Journal of Elec Materi

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Silicon microchannel plates (Si MCPs) are prepared by photo-assisted electrochemical etching (PAECE), and their temperature-sensing behavior based on the Seebeck effect is studied. In particular, the dependence of the temperature sensitivity on the orientation and pore size of the Si MCPs is determined in detail. Our results clarify the relationship between the temperature sensitivity and orientation of the Si MCPs. When the angle between the measured orientation and edge of the square micropore is 45°, the samples with pore dimensions of 5 lm 9 5 lm and 3 lm 9 3 lm show temperature sensitivities of 1.88 mV/°C and 0.93 mV/°C, respectively. In general, the sample with pore size of 5 lm 9 5 lm exhibits higher sensitivity. Si MCPs which are compatible with integrated circuit (IC) processing have promising applications in integrated microtemperature sensing.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fabrication and Characterization of Silicon Microchannel Plates as Temperature-Sensing Materials

Shi

Wang

et al. 2011

Journal of Elec Materi

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For the reasons of mass production, low cost and IC integration, CMOS compatible process was frequently employed to manufacture thermopile sensors. [1][2][3][4] In past years, poly silicon layers and aluminum layers were the most popular materials for forming thermopile elements [5][6][7][8]. The thermal conductivity of bulk aluminum is about 237 W/m-K and bulk titanium is 21.9 W /m· K. The enormous thermal conductivity of aluminum results in sensitivity drop.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel CMOS-compatible polysilicon/titanium thermopile

Chen

Huang

Chen

et al. 2009

2009 IEEE 3rd International Conference on Nano/Molecular Medicine and Engineering

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this paper, we present a 0.8-Jlm IP2M CMOS process compatible polysilicon/titanium thermopile with a gold black absorption layer. Instead of an aluminum layer of 0.6 Jlm thickness in the first metallization process, a titanium layer of 0.1 Jlm thickness was introduced to the fabrication of a CMOS compatible thermopile in order to enhance sensitivity by lowering the thermal conductance of the sensor. After the CMOS process, a 1.2-mm-square floating thermopile structure was formed by using a front-side anisotropic etching process in dual-doped tetra-methyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH) solution, in which the etch rates of aluminum thin film are relatively low. The experimental data reveal that the etch rate of a thermally evaporated aluminum film could be smaller than 10 A/min in 5 wt.% TMAH solution with the addition of 4 gm/I ammonium peroxodisulfate (AP) and 24 gm/I silicic acid. Eventually, a 0.8mm-square porous gold black layer was thermally evaporated upon the sensor surface to serve as an infrared absorption layer. The FTIR spectrum shows that the absorber has near perfect absorptance in the wavelength range of 5 to 15 Jlm. The completed thermopile sensor consists of 96 poly-Si/Ti thermocouples pairs and has a resistance of 43.5 kilo-ohms. For reducing environment noises, the sensor chip was encapsulated in a T05 metal-can with an 8-14 Jlm filter. The measurement result indicates the sensor has a thermal time constant of 103 ms in atmosphere and 173 ms in a pressure of 16 mTorr respectively.In addition to an increasing time constant, the output voltage also raises by a factor of 2.3 in vacuum environment.

show abstract

“…Schaufelbuhl [3] reported a thermoelectric CMOS infrared sensor array composed of polysilicon/aluminum thermopiles with a combined Seebeck coefficient of 108 μV/K. Akin [7] utilized the n-poly/p + diffusion to fabricate thermocouples with a higher combined Seebeck coefficient of 750 μV/K. The most effective combination for raising the Seebeck coefficient is to connect the p-type and n-type polysilicon directly without the via metal in CMOS process.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A CMOS MEMS thermal sensor with high frequency output

Tseng

Fang

et al. 2008

2008 IEEE Sensors

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-This work presents the design and characterization of a CMOS-integrated thermal sensor that features a novel oscillator-based sensing interface to achieve a high thermoelectric sensitivity. The thirty pairs of thermocouples are made of n + /p + polysilicon of a standard 0.18-μm CMOS to produce a large thermoelectric voltage. The produced thermoelectric voltage is used to control the bias current of a high-frequency oscillator circuit and causes a shift in the output frequency. Experimental result indicates the 544-MHz oscillator has a temperature sensitivity of 46.3 kHz/°C.

show abstract

An integrated thermopile structure with high responsivity using any standard CMOS process

Cited by 33 publications

References 10 publications

Fabrication and Characterization of Silicon Microchannel Plates as Temperature-Sensing Materials

Fabrication and Characterization of Silicon Microchannel Plates as Temperature-Sensing Materials

A novel CMOS-compatible polysilicon/titanium thermopile

A CMOS MEMS thermal sensor with high frequency output

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About