Transient thermal simulation of uncooled microbolometer detectors and their performance analysis - art. no. 64234S

Recent advances in MEMS and focal plane array (FPA) technologies have led to the development of manufacturing microbolometers monolithically on a readout integrated circuit (ROIC). Since the response of microbolometer detectors depends on the modification of temperature in micromachined bridge structures, it is useful to model and simulate thermally the corresponding structures in order to predict their performance parameters. In this work, finite element methods are performed to simulate the transient temperature field of thermistor films of microbolometer detectors. The varisized supporting legs' impacts on the performance of detectors are discussed and the transient response for three microbolometer configurations was investigated. At the same time, variation of the operation temperature's impacts on total noise, noise equivalent to temperature difference (NETD) and detectivity (D*) are also discussed in details. These performance analyses are helpful for optimum design of microbolometer infrared detectors' structure and rational choice of operation temperature of infrared focal plane arrays.