Abstract
CMOS compatibility and 8-inch manufacturability have been highly desired in MEMS technology. In this article, we demonstrate a MEMS pyroelectric IR detector using CMOS compatible AlN and 8-inch semiconductor wafer technology. This AlN pyroelectric detector detects IR over wavelength ranging from 5 $\mu \text{m}$ to 14 $\mu \text{m}$ . In addition, this detector is designed to have added mechanical stiffness for improved device integrity. The detectors are fabricated with different sensing area dimensions to compare their performance. The best performing detector has an NEP $\sim \,\,8.87\times 10^{\text {-9}}\,\,\text {W/}\sqrt {\text {Hz}} $ and ${D} ^\ast \,\,\sim \,\,6.04\times 10^{{6}}\,\,{\text {cm}\sqrt {\text {Hz}}}/ \text {W}$ . These pyroelectric detectors are designed and built with the consideration to enable ease of monolithic integration with other components to form an integrated gas sensor system. This includes enabling detection of illumination from the front side and using an absorber stack that consists of CMOS dielectric layers. Subsequently, they will form a crucial part of the architectures for miniature photonics-based gas sensors. Their performance is a first step towards 8-inch wafer level CMOS-compatible manufacturable photonics gas sensors. [2020-0157]
Highlights
P YROELECTRIC detectors are thermal detectors that operates at room temperature
The thicknesses measured by the transmission electron microscopy (TEM) are as follows: first bottom layer of SiO2 has measured thickness of 760 nm, Mo bottom electrode has layer thickness of 144 nm, Aluminum Nitride (AlN) sensing layer has thickness 1.014 μm, Titanium Nitride (TiN) top electrode layer has thickness 47.3 nm Figure 5a shows measured reflectance and transmittance spectra of the entire detector stack over the wavelength range from 2.25 μm to 14 μm
We have demonstrated a functional pyroelectric detector that has absorption optimized to operate in the wavelength range from 5 μm to 14 μm
Summary
P YROELECTRIC detectors are thermal detectors that operates at room temperature. They make use of temperature fluctuations to produce spontaneous polarization in the pyroelectric sensing material [1], resulting in an outputManuscript received May 12, 2020; revised July 30, 2020; accepted August 6, 2020. P YROELECTRIC detectors are thermal detectors that operates at room temperature. They make use of temperature fluctuations to produce spontaneous polarization in the pyroelectric sensing material [1], resulting in an output. Manuscript received May 12, 2020; revised July 30, 2020; accepted August 6, 2020. Date of publication August 17, 2020; date of current version October 7, 2020.
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