Uncooled amorphous silicon microbolometers have been established as a field-worthy technology for a broad range of applications where performance and form factor are paramount, such as soldier-borne systems. Recent developments in both bolometer materials and pixel design at L-3 in the 17μm pixel node have further advanced the state-of-the-art. Increasing the a-Si material temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) has the impact of improving NETD sensitivity without increasing thermal time constant (TTC), leading to an improvement in the NETD×TTC product. By tuning the amorphous silicon thin-film microstructure using hydrogen dilution during deposition, films with high TCR have been developed. The electrical properties of these films have been shown to be stable even after thermal cycling to temperatures greater than 300^oC enabling wafer-level vacuum packaging currently performed at L-3 to reduce the size and weight of the vacuum packaged unit. Through appropriate selection of conditions during deposition, amorphous silicon of ~3.4% TCR has been integrated into the L-3 microbolometer manufacturing flow. By combining pixel design enhancements with improvements to amorphous silicon thin-film technology, L-3's amorphous silicon microbolometer technology will continue to provide the performance required to meet the needs to tomorrow's war-fighter.

Date Published: 20 May 2011
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8012, Infrared Technology and Applications XXXVII, 80121L (20 May 2011); doi: 10.1117/12.884249

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8012:
Infrared Technology and Applications XXXVII
Bjørn F. Andresen; Gabor F. Fulop; Paul R. Norton, Editor(s)