LETI/LIR's amorphous silicon uncooled microbolometer development

Today, a large number of uncooled infrared detector developments are under progress due to the availability of silicon technology that enables realization of low cost 2D IR arrays. LETI/LIR, which has been involved in this field for a few years, has chosen resistive amorphous silicon as thermometer for its uncooled microbolometer development. After a first phase dedicated to acquisition of the most important detector parameters in order to help the modeling and technological development, an IRCMOS laboratory model (256 X 64 with a pitch of 50 micrometer) was realized and characterized. It was shown that NETD of 90 mK at f/1, 25 Hz and 300 K background can be obtained with high thermal insulation (1.2 107 K/W).