A novel spiral CMOS compatible micromachined thermoelectric IR microsensor

A novel sensing structure and realization method is proposed for complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible thermoelectric uncooled infrared microsensors. The structure enables high sensitivity and excellent thermal isolation in sensor pixels with small dimensions suitable for two-dimensional thermal imaging. Front-side dry micromachining allows fast CMOS post-processing, small pixel pitch and integration with on-chip CMOS readout. Prototype sensors with an area of 70 x 70 mum(2) achieved a measured noise equivalent power of 0.36 nW Hz(-1/2) and a response time of 3 ms.