Design and fabrication of a sandwich framed focal plane array for uncooled infrared imaging

Author

Zhao, R. ; Ma, W. ; Wang, S. ; Yu, X. ; Feng, Y. ; Zhao, Y.

Author_Institution

Nat. Key Lab. of Sci. & Technol. on Micro/Nano Fabrication, Peking Univ., Beijing, China

fYear

2015

fDate

21-25 June 2015

Firstpage

1318

Lastpage

1321

Abstract

This paper reports a novel infrared (IR) focal plane array (FPA) by using SiN_x/SiO₂/SiN_x sandwich structure as the frames of bimaterial cantilever pixels, and which have sufficient supporting intensity to avoid the fracture and bending of the focal plane. The device was fabricated with a bulk silicon process, where a trench backfill technique was employed to form the SiN_x/SiO₂/SiN_x sandwiched frames. By replacing the silicon frame with SiN_x/SiO₂/SiN_x frame, the fill factor of the FPA is increased to 42%. Meanwhile, the reliability and uniformity of the FPA were improved with a design of staggered arrangement of cantilever pixels. Thermal images of human bodies were captured successfully with the FPA at room temperature.

Keywords

cantilevers; focal planes; infrared imaging; sandwich structures; silicon compounds; FPA; IR imaging; SiN_x-SiO₂-SiN_x; bending; bimaterial cantilever pixel; bulk silicon process; fracture; sandwich framed focal plane array; temperature 293 K to 298 K; thermal imaging; trench backfill technique; uncooled infrared imaging; Arrays; Fabrication; Gold; Mirrors; Silicon; Silicon compounds; Substrates; Focal plane array (FPA); bimaterial cantilever; infrared imaging; sandwich frame;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Solid-State Sensors, Actuators and Microsystems (TRANSDUCERS), 2015 Transducers - 2015 18th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Anchorage, AK

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/TRANSDUCERS.2015.7181174

Filename

7181174