A numerical simulation tool for infrared thermopile detectors

A model for thermopile detectors is developed using a MatLab based numerical simulation. The model uses geometry and physical parameters of thermopile materials as input data and calculates the main characteristics of the detector. The numerical results closely agree with experimentally determined parameters. The influence of several input parameters on the detector´s performance is studied. Using this approach the output signal of the Dexter Research ST150 detector is improved by 30%. A new model of a CMOS based detector for gas analysis is optimized. The simulation results show significant improvement in the detector´s performance when poly-Si/Al materials are substituted by n-poly-Si/p-poly-Si materials. The model predicts D* = 2.5×10⁸ cmHz¹2//W with a time constant of 17 ms.