Spectrally selective infrared detector based on an ultra-thin piezoelectric resonant metamaterial

This paper reports on the first demonstration of a spectrally selective uncooled microelectromechanical resonant infrared (IR) detector based on an ultra-thin piezoelectric resonant metamaterial. The use of an ultra-thin (600 nm) piezoelectric metamaterial to form the resonant body of the device eliminates the electromechanical loading effect associated with the integration of an IR absorber (guaranteeing high electromechanical performance: quality factor, Q~1407 and electromechanical coupling coefficient, k_t²~1.9%) and enables strong and spectrally selective absorption of long wavelength infrared (LWIR) radiation in an ultra-low volume device, resulting in a fast (thermal time constant ~650 μs) and high resolution (noise equivalent power ~7 nW/Hz^1/2 for a 200 Hz bandwidth) LWIR detector prototype with a ~40% absorption for an optimized spectral wavelength of 8.8 μm with Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM) of 1.88 μm.