Paper
21 May 2002 Amorphous silicon technology improvement at CEA-LETI
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The emergence of uncooled infrared detectors has opened new opportunities for IR imaging both for military and civil applications. Infrared imaging sensors that operate without cryogenic cooling have the potential to provide the military or civilian users with infrared vision capabilities packaged in a camera of extremely small size, weight and power. Uncooled infrared sensor technology has advanced rapidly in the past few years. Higher performance sensors, electronics integration at the sensor, and new concepts for signal processing are generating advanced infrared focal plane arrays. This would significantly reduce the cost and accelerate the implementation of sensors for applications such as surveillance or predictive maintenance. We present the uncooled infrared detector operation principle and the development at CEA/LETI from the 256 x 64 with a pitch of 50 micrometers to the 320 x 240 with a pitch of 35 micrometers . LETI has been involved in Amorphous Silicon uncooled microbolometer development since 1992. This silicon IR detection is now well mastered and matured so that industrial transfer of LETI technology was performed in 2000 towards Sofradir. Industrial production of 320 x 240 microbolometer array with 45micrometers pitch is then started. After a description of the technology and the methodology for reliability enhancement, we present the readout circuit architectures designs and its evolution from the 256 x 64 array to the different version of 320 x 240 arrays. Electro-optical results obtained from these IRCMOS are presented. NEDT close to 30 mK is now obtained with our standard microbolometer amorphous silicon technology.
© (2002) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Eric Mottin, Astrid Bain, Pierre Castelein, Jean-Louis Ouvrier-Buffet, Jean-Luc Tissot, Jean-Jacques Yon, and Jean-Pierre Chatard "Amorphous silicon technology improvement at CEA-LETI", Proc. SPIE 4650, Photodetector Materials and Devices VII, (21 May 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.467656
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KEYWORDS
Sensors

Amorphous silicon

Resistance

Bolometers

Microbolometers

Standards development

Infrared radiation

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