Indian Journal of Pure & Applied Physics

Vol. 45, April 2007, pp. 304-310

Uncooled infrared detectors based on MEMS technologies

V K Jain
CSIO (Delhi Centre), CSIR Complex, Pusa Campus, New Delhi 110 012
E-mail: Vk_mems@yahoo.com
Received 7 June 2006 ; revised 11 December 2006 ; accepted 9 January 2007
Uncooled infrared (IR) detectors are gaining importance over the HgCdTe based IR photon detectors because of their
room temperature operation, low power consumption and smaller in size. Silicon micromachining has made it possible to
make micro bolometer base IR detector. In a focal plane array (FPA), there is a two dimensional assembly of bolometers and
each bolometer acts as a thermally sensitive pixel. The detector element consists of thermal sensitive material suspended
above the readout electronics having an air gap of 2 micron and supported by thermally isolated hinges. The most important
task is to design the structure of the sensor having the lowest possible thermal conductance. The characterization gives that
thermal conductance and thermal mass are the deciding factors for the higher responsivity and detectivity. This paper
presents a modified design based on thermal characterization of the membranes of micro bolometer. Based on our
theoretical analysis, the required thermal conductance can be achieved even with short hinges. This can be done by reducing
the thermal conductivity of the material of hinges. Our experimental investigations are in good agreement with this concept.
This will also enhance the fill factor of the two dimensional IR array.
Keywords: Infrared detectors, MEMS, Uncooled IR detectors, Silicon micromachining
IPC Code: H01L, B81B7/02

1 Introduction
There are two basic principles for infrared (IR)
imaging: photonic and thermal detection. In photon
detector, IR radiations get absorbed in the material
and generate the electron hole pairs, which produce a
change in the electrical conductivity. In thermal
detectors, absorption of IR radiations produces an
increase in the temperature of the pixel. This type of
detector does not need cooling in order to obtain a
good signal. These detectors are called as uncooled
thermal sensors. These uncooled IR sensors have
attracted a great deal of interest due to their large
number of applications in military as well as in many
other commercial sectors. Apart from their use in
night vision systems, these sensors can also be used in
many other applications in the field of biomedical.
These detectors can be of various types, bolometer,
pyroelectric and thermoelectric. Bolometers are
preferred over others because of their fabrication
technique, which is compatible with silicon
technology1,2.
Silicon micromachining has made it possible to
make these micro bolometer detectors to sense IR
radiations. For the formation of complete image of an
object, an array of bolometers is required. In a focal
plane array (FPA), there should be a two dimensional

assembly of bolometers and each bolometer acts as a

thermally sensitive pixel. Each pixel has an IR
sensitive layer, which is connected with the substrate.
On receiving the IR radiation, the temperature of the
pixel increases, which causes the change in the
resistance of the bolometer. To have high
performance, these detectors should be thermally
isolated. Conduction of heat can occur within the
structure in three ways: through support structure,
from one pixel to another and flowing through
surrounding atmosphere. However, if the array is
mounted in an evacuated package and the pixels are
not in contiguous manner, then the heat loss will only
be due to the support structure. To minimize this
conduction mechanism, the sensitive elements are
made on the thin membrane of silicon dioxide or
silicon nitride, the membrane is raised above the
silicon substrate with the help of two legs/hinges at
the opposite corners. The detector element consists of
thermal sensitive material suspended above the
readout electronics having an air gap of 2 micron and
supported by thermally isolated hinges.
This paper presents a modified design based on
thermal characterization of the membrane of
microbolometer. The most challenging task is to
design the structure of the sensor having the lowest

JAIN: UNCOOLED INFRARED DETECTORS BASED ON MEMS TECHNOLOGIES

305

possible thermal conductance. The results obtained

during modeling of the device show that thermal
conductance and thermal mass are the deciding
factors for higher responsivity and detectivity of the
detector. Generally, to achieve low thermal
conductance, the supporting hinges (legs) should be
as long as possible and the width and thickness should
be as small as possible. Making very long legs with
minimum width and thickness have some
experimental difficulties. This also makes the yield
poor. Based on our theoretical analysis, the same
thermal conductance can be achieved even with short
hinges, provided thermal conductivity of the material
of the hinges can be reduced. Our experimental
investigations are in good agreement with this
concept. This will also enhance the fill factor of the
two dimensional IR array.
2 Fabrication of IR Sensor
Fabrication of IR sensor3 can be done in two ways
using one level and two levels technologies. In one
level, design sensor is on the micro bridge, which is
thermally isolated by making an etched pit in the
underlying Silicon substrate. It can be made using
bulk micromachining. In two levels, microbolometer
sensor is on the micro bridge, which is elevated above
the Si substrate. It can be made by surface
micromachining. In this structure, the fill factor is
high because readout circuits are below the bridge
instead of being adjacent to the bridge as in the one
level technology as shown in Fig. 1. In the present
work, two level technologies have been taken to make
the sensor array.
Many efforts were made to reduce the leg length to
make technology simple and to increase the yield.
Here efforts have been made to tailor the thermal
conductivity of the material of the legs to change the
length. An array of 4x4 of 100 m x 100 m pixel
size has been made. The complete process of
fabrication has been given in our earlier publication3.
In these arrays, 0.2 m and 0.4 m thick membranes
of SiO2 have been made on silicon substrate having 2
m air gap between the membrane and the silicon
substrate and it is supported with the help of two
hinges or legs only. Titanium thin film of thickness
1000 has been used as the bolometer sensor on the
oxide membrane. Extended gold contacts were made
with the bolometer to measure the change in the
resistance. The following processing steps have been
used in making the sensor array:

Fig. 1Microbolometer Designs

(1) One micron thick silicon dioxide layer was

thermally grown on silicon substrate; (2) Deposition
of 2 micron thick sacrificial layer on silicon dioxide
layer; (3) Patterning of sacrificial layer to form mesas
using photolithography; (4) Deposition of thin films
of (i) SiO2 layer for membrane, (ii) Ti layer for
bolometer, (iii) Au layer for contacts and (iv)
passivating and ARC layers; (5) Obtained the required
bolometer structure using photolithography and
different etchents; (6) Micro Channel has been made
to remove the sacrificial layer; (7) Got the freely
suspended membrane with bolometer structure with
electrical contacts and passivating antireflection
layers on it; (8) The electrical connections of the
bolometer are on the two hinges of the membrane,
and (9) The complete structures and array of IR
sensors are shown in Fig. 2.
2.1 Heat conduction mechanism in bolometer

A bolometer is a thermal IR sensor, which can be

defined as a sensor that detects incident IR radiation
by the induced increase in sensor temperature. This
increase in sensor temperature causes a change in
resistance. The analysis of resistive bolometer
assumes that the temperature increase T of the
bolometer due to absorption of IR radiation. This
changes the resistance R, which is linear with T,
i.e.,
R R T

(1)

306

INDIAN J PURE & APPL PHYS, VOL 45, APRIL 2007

Fig. 2(a)Single element of IR Sensor array

Fig. 2(b)SEM picture of the element

Fig. 2(c)4x4array

Fig. 2(d)16x16 Bolometer array

JAIN: UNCOOLED INFRARED DETECTORS BASED ON MEMS TECHNOLOGIES

The change in resistance in terms of temperature

coefficient of resistance, , is given2 by:
R = RT

(2)

where

1 dR
R dT

(3)

For a good detector, responsivity should be high. It is

given by:

Rv =

I B R

G 1 + 2 2

1/ 2

(4)

where is the fraction of the incident radiation that is

absorbed, IB the bias current, G the thermal
conductance of the suspended structure, the
modulation frequency and is the thermal time
constant given by:
= C/G

(5)

where C is the heat capacity and is given by:

C = Vc

(6)

where V is the volume of the detector, the density of

the membrane material and c is the specific heat.
In these structures, the thermal conductance is an
important parameter. A low value of thermal
conductance (G) is required for high responsivity and
is obtained by optimizing the membrane structure.
The total G of the structure is given by4:
G = Gleg + Ggas + Grad

conductance can be written as:

Aleg
G = 2
Lleg

307

(9)

where is the thermal conductivity of the leg

material, Aleg, the cross-sectional area of legs and Lleg,
the length of the legs.
Using Eq. (9), the calculations have been done here
for thermal conductance for different lengths of the
legs. Fig. 3 shows the variation of thermal
conductance with the length of the legs for different
values of width for 0.2m thickness. The value of the
thermal conductivity of SiO2 is taken as 1.4 W/mK as
given in the literature for bulk. We have taken 4 to
16m width of the legs for 100m x 100m pixels
size for different leg lengths. Calculated results show
that the thermal conductance can be achieved in the
range of 10 7 W/K, only if the legs length is more
than 20m.
Fig. 3 shows the variation of thermal conductance
with the length of the hinge for different widths and
with 0.2m thickness.
In our experimental investigations, we have made
IR sensor with 2m leg length and 12 m width of the
hinge. Efforts were made to make the material of the
hinge having low thermal conductivity. Using this
technique we .got the required values of thermal

(7)

where Gleg is due to the heat conductance through the

legs, Ggas the conduction due to the surrounding gas
and Grad is due to the radiation to the surrounding air.
Grad is very small, as the temperature difference
between the membrane and the surroundings is very
small. In vacuum, Ggas is very small in comparison to
the Gleg. So total G is given by:
G = Gleg

(8)

The heat conduction is dominated due to the conduction through the supporting legs. Eriksson et al4.
after taking many considerations, showed the thermal

Fig. 3 Variation of thermal conductance with length of hinges

(t is thickness and w is width of hinges)

308

INDIAN J PURE & APPL PHYS, VOL 45, APRIL 2007

conductance, which are quite different from the

calculated values. The aim of this work is to show that
by decreasing the thermal conductivity of the material
of the legs similar results of G can be obtained
without increasing the length of the legs.
2.2 Measurement of thermal conductance (G)

Here two methods are employed to measure the

thermal conductance in our samples. In first method,
heat is generated in the thermally insulated membrane
and simultaneously measured the increase in the
temperature. In second methods the thermal
conductance is calculated by measuring the
responsibility of the sensor.
In the first technique, heat generation within the
membrane can be done either by absorption of IR
radiation or dissipating the electric power through a
resistor (Bolometer) on the membrane. It is difficult to
measure the power absorbed in the membrane and the
rise in the temperature. It is easy to generate heat by
dissipating the power through bolometer resistor.
Measurement of the change in resistance of the
bolometer can give the exact increase in temperature
of the element. The change in resistance with
temperature is linear in case of titanium bolometer.
The relation can be written as:
R =R0 [1+ (T-T0)]

(10)

where Ro is resistance at temperature To and is the

temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR). The
relation between the temperature difference and
electric power is4:
G (T-T0) = RI2

bolometer was measured at different currents. Fig. 5

shows the plot of inverse of resistance versus square
of the current through the bolometer. Using Eq (12),
the slope of the curve gives the value of /G and it
comes out to be 1.005 x 103 W-1. Taking value of as
0.002 K-1, G was calculated to be 3.6X 10-6 W/K for
100 m x 100 m pixel size.
In second method, the thermal conductance (G)
was obtained from our experimental results of

Fig. 4Variation of resistance of the Ti bolometer with

temperature

(11)

From Eqs (10) and (11) the relation between the

resistance and thermal conductance becomes:
1/R =1/R0 - /G xI2

(12)

Plotting a curve between the inverse of the resistance

and I2, the ratio of /G can be found by linear curve
fitting. If we know the value of , G can be
calculated. (TCR) was determined by measuring the
resistance of bolometer at different temperatures.
3 Results and Discussion
Fig. 4 shows the variation of resistance with
temperature of the Ti bolometer fabricated on SiO2
membrane. The value of TCR is determined using Eq.
(3) and the results show that it is 0.002 K-1.
To determine the value of G, the resistance of

Fig. 5Plot of inverse of resistance versus square of current

JAIN: UNCOOLED INFRARED DETECTORS BASED ON MEMS TECHNOLOGIES

responsivity. The responsivity was measured at 5Hz.

To measure the thermal time constant (), the incident
radiation was modulated using an optical chopper and
the output signal was recorded as a function of
chopper frequency using relation =1/2 fB, where fB
is the 3-dB bandwidth.
Now using Eq. (4), G was calculated for the pixel
size of 100 m x100m, length of the hinges 2 m,
width 12m and thickness o.2m, R=2K, bias current
0.25mA and reponsivity obtained is 991V/W,
assuming to be 50 %. The G obtained by this
method is 4.72x10-7 (W/K), while theoretic
calculations show 3.6x10- 6 (W/K). It is observed that
the values of G obtained for the pixel size of 100 m
x 100 m by two experimental methods are nearly
equal.
The difference in the experimental and theoretical
values of G can only be explained by reduced value of
thermal conductivity of SiO2. In theoretical
calculations, the value of the bulk SiO2 reported in the
literature. The thermal conductivity of SiO2 in the
bulk form is well known and is 1.4 W/me at room
temperature. The discrepancy is explained on the
basis of the value of thermal conductivity of thin film
is much lower than that of the bulk. The reduction in
the value of thermal conductivity of thin films
compared to bulk has been measured and discussed
by many researches and can be due to various
reasons.
Many studies made by the different researchers
show that thermal conductivity of thin films of SiO2
deposited on silicon is substantially lower than those
of their bulk and is dependent on the thickness of the
film. Physical and chemical properties are also
dependent on their preparation techniques, which in
turn affect the thermal conductivity of the film.
Harry et al5. measured the thermal conductivity of
the thin film of silicon dioxide. They found thermal
conductivity is much lower in thin films compared to
bulk and it decreases with increase of temperature,
which is in contrast to bulk. Their results also suggest
that the thermal conductivity decreases with
decreasing film thickness. As per their results, thermal
conductivity of the 3.04m thick layer is 69% of the
bulk at room temperature and only 37% of the bulk at
2550C while it is 48% of the bulk when the thickness
is 1.74m and even 28% of the bulk at 2550C.The
decrease of the thermal conductivity was also reported
by Balandin et al7. and Brazen et al8. They found that
the thermal conductivity decreases as the film

309

thickness is reduced.
According to them, boundary scattering of phonons
is important when the dimensions of the membrane
are of the some order of the magnitude greater than
the phonon mean free path6. The high frequency
phonon are strongly scattered by point imperfections.
Boundary scattering becomes important when the
thickness of the membrane is greatly reduced. The
heat is carried primarily by low frequency phonons,
which are particularly sensitive to boundary
scattering. Harry et al5. considered the silicon dioxide
is of amorphous nature, the heat conduction will be
mostly by low frequency phonons. This will greatly
reduce the thermal conductivity in thin films.
In our device, we have deposited the silicon
dioxide film by thermal evaporation in oxygen
atmosphere. We expect its quality to be poor as
compared to thermal oxidation. This technique was
used because of the restriction of high temperature
processing of the device which is because of the mesa
structures which were made by photoresist where the
temperature cannot be raised more than 90 0C. Our
experimental results confirm that for the formation of
the micro-bolometer for IR sensor, the required values
of the thermal conductance can be obtained even with
short hinges by tailoring the properties of the material
used to make the membrane and the legs.
4 Conclusion
This paper presents a modified design based on the
thermal characterisation of the membrane and also
gives the processing technique to fabricate the micro
bolometer based uncooled IR detector. Surface micro
machining has been used to make the detector. To
achieve the required thermal conductance for high
detectivity generally long length of the legs were
used. Our design predicts that length of the legs can
be reduced by tailoring the properties of the material
used to make the legs. Thermal evaporation system
has been used to make the membrane and the legs of
silicon dioxide. The thermal conductivity of the
material has been reduced to achieve the required
thermal conductance for the IR detector. Our
experimental observations confirm our theoretical
predictions. These processes simplify the technology
for fabrication and also increase the yield of the
sensor arrays.
Acknowledgement
Author is thankful to Mr C R Jalwania for his

INDIAN J PURE & APPL PHYS, VOL 45, APRIL 2007

310

support and helpful discussion.

References
1
2
3
4

Paul W Kruse, SPIE, 2552 (1995) 556.

Kruse P W, Semiconductor & Semimetals, 47 (1997) 16.
Jain V K & Jalwania C R, SPIE, 3903 (1999) 206.
Erikson P, Anderson J Y & Stemme G, J
Micromechanical Systems, 6 (1997) 55.

6
7
of

Harry AS, John SS & Paul GA Mirel, Proc. IEEE, 2 (1989)

121.
Goldsmid HJ & Penn AW, Phys. Lett, 27A (1968).
Balandin A & Wang KI 6th Intl. Symp. Nanostructures:
Physics and Technology, St. Petersburg (1998) 24.
Brotzen FR, Thin Solid Films, 207(1992) 197.