A CMOS compatible micromachined thermopile IR sensor with high sensitivity

摘要

Micromachined thermal IR sensors are of major importance to IR radiation related applications. In this article, a thermopile IR sensor with high sensitivity was fabricated using the complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process and silicon micromachining technology. As a result, the entire bulk silicon under the thermopile structure was removed and the thermopile structure was released from the front side; both the solid thermal loss of the support membrane and gas convection loss decreased. Without additional IR absorption material in the absorber area, the sensor shows a sensitivity of ～131 V/W and a noise equivalent power of 0.21 nW/ Hz~(1/2) in air at room temperature.