• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.311-316
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• 2018

An antenna-coupled bolometer-type terahertz sensor was designed, fabricated, evaluated, and utilized to obtain terahertz transmission images. The sensor consists of a thin film bowtie antenna that resonates accordingly in response to an incident terahertz beam, a heater that converts the applied current in the antenna into heat, and a microbolometer that converts the rise in temperature into a change in resistance. The device is fabricated by a bulk micromachining process on a 4-inch silicon wafer. The fabricated sensor chip has a size of $2{\times}2mm$ and an active area of $0.1{\times}0.1mm^2$. The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the bolometer film (VOx) is 2.0%, which is acceptable for bolometer applications. The output sensor signal is proportional to the power of the incident terahertz beam. Transmission images were obtained with a 2-axis scanning imaging system that contained the sensor. The small active area of the sensor will enable the development of highly sensitive focal plane array sensors in terahertz imaging cameras in the future.