Uncooled micromachined cmos compatible IR sensing microsystems

The paper presents design, fabrication, characterization and analysis of uncooled micromachined CMOS compatible IR sensing microsystems. The microsystems under study are thermoelectric sensors for thermal uncooled IR detection integrated monolithically on a CMOS chip containing their readout circuits. In the design, a novel optimization scheme was employed and the dependence of performance upon pixel area and aspect ratio was modeled and investigated. Two methods of fabrication were developed, backside wet bulk micromachining and front-side dry RIE micromachining.