Self-powered optical sensor systems

Author

Wu, H. ; Emadi, A. ; de Graaf, G. ; Leijtens, J. ; Wolffenbuttel, R.F.

Author_Institution

Fac. EEMCS, Delft Univ. of Technol., Delft, Netherlands

fYear

2009

fDate

21-25 June 2009

Firstpage

1373

Lastpage

1376

Abstract

A 0.35 mum CMOS process has been used for on-chip integration of a sun sensor composed of a 2times2 photodiode array and a current-to-voltage amplifier. Unlike conventional sun sensors, a shade profile proportional to the angle of incidence of incoming light is projected onto the photodiodes. This concept enables an autonomous self-powered optical system with two the main functions (electrical power generation for the amplifier and the optical position measurement) implemented in the photodiodes by having these operated simultaneously in the photovoltaic and photocurrent mode respectively. The low-power current-to-voltage converter is used to readout the differential photocurrent, while powered from the photodiodes at minimum supply voltage level. Test structures have been designed, fabricated and used for validation of the concept.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; detector circuits; energy harvesting; integrated optoelectronics; optical sensors; photoconductivity; photodetectors; photodiodes; power electronics; readout electronics; solar energy conversion; CMOS process; current-to-voltage amplifier; current-to-voltage converter; differential photocurrent; electrical power generation; energy scavenging; on-chip integration; photocurrent mode; photodiode array; photovoltaic mode; self powered optical sensor systems; shade profile; size 0.35 mum; sun sensor; CMOS process; Optical amplifiers; Optical sensors; Photoconductivity; Photodiodes; Photovoltaic systems; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Sensor arrays; Stimulated emission; Sun; Energy scavenging; Self-powering; optical system; photodiode; sun sensor;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems Conference, 2009. TRANSDUCERS 2009. International

Conference_Location

Denver, CO

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4190-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-4193-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SENSOR.2009.5285827

Filename

5285827