Design, Fabrication, and Characterization of a 240 $ \times$ 240 MEMS Uncooled Infrared Focal Plane Array With 42-$\mu \hbox{m}$ Pitch Pixels

Abstract

We report a significant step in the design, fabrication, and performance evaluation of a 240 <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\times$</tex></formula> 240 microelectromechanical system uncooled infrared (IR) focal plane array (FPA) with 42- <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\mu\hbox{m}$</tex></formula> pitch pixels. An improved analytical model has been developed to optimize the design. The optimal key parameters have been verified through experiments, including thermal transmission efficiency, thermomechanical sensitivity, thermal sensitivity, and response time. Compared with our previous work, the number of the fabricated FPA's pixels is increased by 125% and the corresponding pixel's area is decreased by 51%. Furthermore, our FPA has a good sensitivity with a noise equivalent temperature difference of about 373 mK, thus providing an extension of state-of-the-art IR FPA and practical information for future applications. <formula formulatype="inline" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex Notation="TeX">$\hfill$</tex></formula> [2012-0226]