Room temperature deposition of highly sensitive vanadium oxide films for infrared light sensing applications

Uncooled infrared micro bolometer detectors have gained increasing attention for military and commercial imaging applications. Due to their light weight, low power, response in the infrared region, and compatibility with readout integrated circuits, traditional thermo-resistive vanadium oxide based micro-bolometers have become popular compared to pyro-electric and photo-detectors. Traditionally, VOx films are fabricated using ion beam or magnetron sputtering 1, 2. We report on using low cost dip coating deposition of an alkoxide sol gel precursor to fabricate uniform single and triple layers of vanadium oxide to a thickness of 150nm. Experimental results demonstrate the highest reported high temperature coefficient of resistance values for these films at -2.5%/°K, making the dip coating method a low cost alternative for the fabrication of IR sensing applications.