Main characteristics of a miniaturized multipurpose infrared spectrometer

This paper describes the main characteristics of a miniaturized multipurpose infrared spectrometer. The miniaturized spectrometer comprises of three silicon micromachined devices: an electrically modulated thermal infrared emitter, an electrically tunable Fabry-Perot interferometer and a photodetector. The infrared emitter and the detector are monolithically integrated into a silicon substrate; the micromachined Fabry-Perot interferometer is flip-chip bonded on the silicon substrate. In addition, the silicon substrate carries an integrated circuit die-bonded and wire-bonded on the silicon substrate. The whole spectrometer assembly is packaged in a DIL package having holes for the incoming and outgoing radiation. The dimensions of the package are 12 mm x 23 mm x 5 mm. This concept enables the realization of a miniaturized spectrometer for high-volume and low-cost products. In the miniaturization, the critical optical characteristic is the throughput of a system. In addition, the S/N -ratio and crosstalk of the module ate the main electrical characteristics to be considered in the miniaturization. In this paper, the performance of the spectrometer module is presented via measurements including the radiometric analysis, S/N -ratio analysis and crosstalk analysis.