Abstract
The state-of-the-art characteristics of polycrystalline SiGe microbolometer arrays are reported. An NETD of 100 mK at a time constant of 25 ms is achievable on 14×14 and 200×1 arrays at the system level. It is the result of joint studies targeted at 1/f noise decrease, as well as TCR and uniformity improvements together with the design optimization. Thanks to successful decrease of 1/f noise of SiGe, the arrays were moved from "1/f-noise limited" to "system limited", i.e. to the case of VOx arrays. The mechanical design of pixels was improved affording very precise tuning of the infrared quarter-wave resonant cavity. The resistance and TCR non-uniformity with σ/μ better than 0.2% combined with about 1% noise nonuniformity and 100% pixel operability are demonstrated. The first lots of arrays with 99.98% production pixel yield have already been characterized and the results are being reported.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 446-457 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering |
Volume | 5074 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2003 |
Event | Infrared Technology and Applications XXIX - Orlando, FL, United States Duration: 21 Apr 2003 → 25 Apr 2003 |
Keywords
- Infrared
- Linear array
- Microbolometer
- Poly-SiGe
- Readout
- Small focal plane array
- Thermal detector
- Thermal imaging
- Uncooled