Compact thermal modeling of microbolometers

This paper presents an approach to dynamic thermal modeling of micromachined microbolometers. Firstly, all the important factors influencing temperature of infrared radiation sensing elements are identified in repeated numerical thermal simulations performed for a detailed device model, where temperature values were computed for time instants equidistantly spaced on the logarithmic time scale. Secondly, based on the simulation results all the important time constants contained in these dynamic thermal responses were properly identified what allowed the derivation of compact thermal models in the form RC equivalent circuits containing a limited number of stages. The resulting compact thermal models are suitable for the direct implementation in SPICE or any other multiphysics simulation environment.