TRANSITION EDGE DETECTOR TECHNOLOGY FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE IR FOCAL PLANE ARRAYS

摘要

A microbolometer comprising a support substrate having an interrogation surface, a film of a temperature sensitive magnetic material (10), is spaced from the interrogation surface a predetermined distance. An interrogation inductor (11), is formed on the support substrate facing the film, and a readout circuit (16), on the interrogation surface is electrically connected to the interrogation inductor (11). The temperature sensitive magnetic material (10), has a steep, reversible change in its AC magnetic susceptibility at the magnetic Curie temperature. This structure provides a ferromagnetic transition edge bolometer adapted to reversibly change the low field magnetic susceptibility in the region corresponding to the onset of ferromagnetism (ferromagnetic Curie temperature) in response to incident IR radiation (17).