Characterization of non-uniformity and bias-heating for uncooled bolometer FPA detectors using simulator

Abstract

There are some difficulties in the development of uncooled focal plane array (FPA) detectors due to the absence of full simulation model which reflects the characterization of FPA detectors by variations of various parameters. In this paper we propose the simulator for the both readout integrated circuit (ROIC) and bolometer FPA which is based on a thermal equivalence equation of bolometer and mathematical modeling of optical and electrical part in infrared sensor system. The simulator shows the characteristics and the behaviors of individual components of infrared sensor system in the transient-state and steady-state. We present here the simulation results for output characteristics of detectors owing to variations of parameters induced non-uniformity in FPA detectors and find the dominant parameter to be the leading source non-uniformity in FPA detectors. We also present the simulation results for some typical ROICs to cancel the bias-heating which wastes most of the dynamic range of infrared sensor system. These show the effectiveness of compensation for the bias-heating according to variations of parameters. Using the proposed simulator we can expect the quantitative amount of non-uniformity due to the statistical variations in various processing steps and design of ROIC components. It can be used for the systematic design of infrared sensor system which cannot be performed in fabrication procedure.