Modeling, design, and fabrication of uncooled IR CMOS compatible thermoelectric sensors

We present a novel dry micromachining technique for the release of the thermally isolated spiral thermocouples, which achieve the highest thermal resistance for a rectangular pixel with a fixed size. The sensors are fabricated using mask-less post-processing of standard CMOS chips that contain CMOS readout electronics. Basic ID thermal modeling of the sensors is presented and its limitations. Analysis of the performance of the sensors is derived from the modeling. Mechanical resonant frequencies for the structures are also shown. Design of such sensors in standard CMOS technology is reviewed, as well as results of fabricated devices. Fabricated devices include single elements and arrays up to 32*32 elements with pixel size and pitch of several tens of microns.