1 Design of Dual-Band Uncooled Infrared Microbolometer Q. Cheng, Student Member IEEE, S. Paradis, T. Bui, M. Almasri, Member, IEEE Commercial multiband IR cameras are currently available. Abstract— This paper describes the design and modeling of a They typically use two separate focal plane arrays (FPAs) and smart uncooled infrared detector with wavelength selectivity in electronics for each spectral band, or a single FPA and an the long wavelength infrared (LWIR) band. The objective is to optical element that selects the appropriate spectral band (filter enhance the probability of detecting and identifying objects in a wheel or spectral dispersion techniques) [1, 2]. The use of scene. This design takes advantage of the smart properties of separate FPAs has several drawbacks, including significant vanadium dioxide (VO ): it can switch reversibly from an 2 added complexity and cost, and the challenge of alignment IR-transparent to an IR-opaque thin film when properly triggered. This optical behavior is exploited here as a smart between the FPAs. These approaches are effective for certain mirror that can modify the depth of the resonant cavity between applications, but they have proven to be bulky and costly [3]. the suspended thermistor material and a patterned mirror on the Cooled multiband FPAs are based on mercury cadmium substrate, thereby altering wavelength sensitivity. The telluride (MCT), quantum-well IR photodetectors using III-V thermistor material used in the simulation is vanadium oxide materials, and quantum-dot IR photodetectors [4–7]. These (VOX). The simulation results show that when VO2 is used in the detectors offer many advantages such as high sensitivity and metallic phase, it reflects IR radiation back to the suspended very high speed, but require expensive and heavy cryogenic VOX and enhances IR absorption in the 9.4–10.8 Pm band. When equipment to operate. These are used for military applications the film is switched to the semiconductor phase, it admits most IR where ultra high sensitivity and speed are required. For a wide radiation, which is then reflected back to the suspended VO by a X range of applications that do not require ultra high sensitivity, patterned gold thin film under a SiO2 spacer layer. The spacer layer is used to increase the resonant cavity depth underneath the however, the high cost of cooling becomes a problem. The microbolometer pixel. Thus the peak absorption value is shifted development of an uncooled dual-band detector would retain to 8–9.4 Pm, creating the second spectral band. The detector is the advantages of uncooled detectors over cooled detectors, designed with a relatively low thermal conductance of 1.71×10-7 which are: much lower fabrication cost (no exotic and difficult 5 W/K to maximize responsivity (Rv) to values as high as 1.27×10 to produce semiconductor materials), reduced weight, size and W/K and detectivity (D*) to as high as 1.62u109 cm Hz1/2/W, both energy consumption (no bulky and noisy cooling system at 60 Hz. The corresponding thermal time constant is equal to required). The commercial and defense sectors would both 2.45 ms. Hence, these detectors could be used for 60 Hz frame benefit from uncooled dual-band cameras: highway safety, rate applications. The extrapolated noise equivalent temperature medical diagnostics and surgery, surveillance, law difference (NETD) is 14 mK and 16 mK for the 8–9.4 Pm and enforcement, and security. Dual-band cameras also offer a 9.4–10.8 Pm bands, respectively. The calculated absorption possible solution for real-time detection and identification of coefficients in the two spectral bands were 59% and 65%, respectively. carefully concealed targets even in cluttered environments (environments with unwanted parasite signals). Having two Index Terms— Dual-band IR detector, microbolometer, VOx. bands instead of one will ease clutter rejection, and therefore plays a significant role in discriminating the actual I. INTRODUCTION temperature and unique signature of objects in the scene [8–16]. No attempt was made in this study to tune from LWIR NFRARED (IR) imaging cameras detect variations in heat and to MWIR. The reason is that the sensitivity attainable in the I create an electronic image of everything in view. The MWIR with the current state-of-the-art uncooled images generated by typical single-band cameras show the microbolometer does not meet the typical sensitivity surface temperature variations of objects in a scene in requirements of surveillance systems. However, an IR camera black-hot mode. The capability of an IR detector to switch offering wavelength selectivity in the LWIR band has shown wavelength sensitivity between two bands enhances the promise in the detection of such difficult targets as recently probability of detecting and identifying objects in a scene. buried mines [17]. Recently, monolithic detectors offering dual-band tunability have been investigated: Manuscript received December 15, 2009. This work was supported in part wavelength-selective IR microbolometers using planar by PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVT SVC CANADA ACQUISITION under multimode detectors [18] and two-color thermal detectors [19] Grant 00023330. have been designed, and adaptive microbolometers have been Q. Cheng, T. Bui, and M. Almasri are with the University of Missouri, designed, fabricated and characterized [20]. These detectors Columbia, MO 65211 USA; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. were designed to operate in the LWIR band. In the first two S. Paradis, is with the Micro Systems Group at Defence Research and designs, the cavity was tuned by using movable micromirrors Development, Canada; email; [email protected] underneath the microbolometer pixel, while in the third design 2 the cavity was tuned by moving the microbolometer pixel via dR (2) electrostatic actuation. The first approach has not been ȕ R dT realized, while the second approach has achieved low responsivity and detectivity [20]. These designs are relatively The detectivity D* is a figure of merit that measures the complicated since they require movable components. signal to noise ratio and normalizes the performance of the VO2 belongs to a family of materials (termed chromogenic) detector with respect to the detector size. which are capable of reversibly modifying their optical and electrical properties upon specific stimulation such as R A'f temperature, pressure or electrical field. The phase transition D* v (2) of VO which is triggered at 68oC is responsible for its optical 'V 2 n and electrical modulation. At room temperature, the film behaves as a semiconductor material with an energy band gap o Where 'f is the amplifier frequency bandwidth (Hz), A is the of ~ 0.7 eV. When the temperature is increased to 68 C, the 2 energy band gap vanishes, the lattice becomes tetragonal, and detector area (cm ) and 'Vn is the total noise voltage of the system (V). Hence, for good performance, a microbolometer the film behaves as a metal. The electrical resistivity of the * film can be varied by 3 to 4 orders of magnitude, and the film must have large values of E, RV, and D [35, 36]. can be changed from IR-transparent in the semiconducting The Noise Equivalent Temperature Difference (NETD) phase to IR-reflective in the metallic phase [21–27]. These is a camera figure of merit. It is given by: features have prompted many groups to use VO2 at the phase transition for electro-optical switches [26, 27]. We have used F 2 NETD 1/ 2 * (4) the VO2 stochiometry to design the smart mirror because no W 0 A D 'M 'T O O other oxide of vanadium has the stochiometry needed to 1 2 engender the desired chromogenic behavior. VOX (non-stochiometric film) in the semiconducting phase is Where, F is the focal ratio of the optics, W0 is the transmittance selected as an IR-sensitive material because of its high of the optics, and 'M 'T is the change in optical O1 O2 temperature coefficient of resistance, low 1/f noise and low power emitted with respect to temperature per unit area resistance, which is compatible with readout electronics. radiated by a blackbody at temperature T measured within the Several other materials can be used for IR detection, including spectral band from O to O . Note that total noise must be amorphous silicon (a: Si) [28], yttrium barium copper oxide 1 2 minimized and the responsivity must be maximized to achieve (YBaCuO) [29], silicon germanium (SiGe) [30], silicon the best sensitivity. The microbolometer’s thermal response germanium oxide (SiGeO) [31, 32], and metals [33]. In this time High sensitivity can be achieved by maximizing R , and paper, a dual-band microbolometer model is presented. It can V D* and TCR. The thermal time constant, W , was calculated be tuned to two spectral bands (with some overlap) without th from the ratio of the device’s thermal mass to its thermal using a movable structure, and hence the same conductance, C/G . The thermal mass of the microbolometer microfabrication procedures developed for single-band th is given by: microbolometers can be used to fabricate the proposed device. C W L t c W L t c (5) II. BACKGROUND AND THEORY ¦¦n n n n m m m m nm A microbolometer is a thermal sensor whose resistance changes with temperature, associated with the absorption of IR Where, Wn, Ln and tn correspond to width, length, thickness, radiation. Its performance is characterized by several figures and specific heat of each thin film layer, and Wm, Lm, tm, and of merit such as responsivity (Rv), temperature coefficient of c correspond to width, length, thickness and specific heat of * m resistance (TCR), detectivity (D ), and noise equivalent each layer of the electrode arms.