A double-end-beam based infrared device fabricated using CMOS-MEMS process

Abstract

Purpose

Thermopile infrared (IR) detectors are one of the most important IR devices. Considering that the surface area of conventional four-end-beam (FEB)-based thermopile devices cannot be effectively used and the performance of this type of devices is relatively low, this paper aims to present a double-end-beam (DEB)-based thermopile device with high duty cycle and performance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach

Numerical analysis was conducted to show the advantages of the DEB-based thermopile devices.

Findings

Structural size of the DEB-based thermopiles may be further scaled down and maintain relatively higher responsivity and detectivity when compared with the FEB-based thermopiles. The authors characterized the thermoelectric properties of the device proposed in this paper, which achieves a responsivity of 1,151.14 V/W, a detectivity of 4.15 × 108 cm Hz1/2/W and a response time of 14.46 ms sensor based on DEB structure.

Orginality/value

The paper proposed a micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS) thermopile infrared sensor based on double-end-beam structure.

Citation

Lei, C., Mao, H., Yang, Y., Ou, W., Xue, C., Yao, Z., Ming, A., Wang, W., Wang, L., Hu, J. and Xiong, J. (2016), "A double-end-beam based infrared device fabricated using CMOS-MEMS process", Sensor Review, Vol. 36 No. 3, pp. 240-248. https://doi.org/10.1108/SR-02-2016-0038