Penetration of uncooled (room temperature operation) thermal detector arrays into high volume commercial products depends on very low cost technology linked to high volume production. A series of innovative and revolutionary developments is now allowing arrays based on bulk pyroelectric ceramic material to enter the consumer marketplace providing everything from sophisticated security and people monitoring devices to hand held thermal imagers and visual IR thermometers for preventative maintenance and building inspection. Although uncooled resistive microbolometer detector technology has captured market share in higher cost thermal imager products we describe a pyroelectric ceramic technology which does not need micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology and vacuum packaging to give good performance. This is a breakthrough for very low cost sensors and imagers. Recent developments in a variety of products based on pyroelectric ceramic arrays are described and their performance and applicability compared and contrasted with competing technologies.

Date Published: 11 June 2013
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 8704, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXIX, 87041N (11 June 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2014239

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8704:
Infrared Technology and Applications XXXIX
Bjørn F. Andresen; Gabor F. Fulop; Charles M. Hanson; Paul R. Norton; Patrick Robert, Editor(s)