Abstract
We report the design (electrical, mechanical, and thermal) and characterization of an improved performance uncooled thermal sensor for THz radiation based on thermal antenna. The 2-D imager pixel array provides the periodicity and constitutes a frequency-selective surface tuned to the desired THz wavelength band. The focal-plane array is first fabricated in a matured 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS-Silicon Over Insulator (SOI) process. By applying MEMS postprocessing using the CMOS metallization layers as built-in masks, micromachined-suspended directly absorbing resistive antennae integrated with thermal sensors are obtained, thus achieving good thermal isolation as well as low thermal mass. Characterization is performed using blackbody operating at 900–1200 K and THz filters. In contrast to the earlier published results, the reported device is characterized with a fully blocking set of three THz filters. With the current responsivity of $\sim 2.6$ A/W, Noise Equivalent Power (NEP) of the order of NEP/ $\surd $ Hz $|_{1~\text {Hz}}= 6.1$ pW/ $\surd $ Hz, $D^\ast $ of $0.41\cdot 10^{10}$ cm $\surd $ Hz/W, this uncooled THz sensor in the standard CMOS-SOI technology may enable monolithic uncooled passive THz imagers.
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