• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.130-136
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• 2010

The microbolometer array sensor with fine pitch pixel array has been implemented to the released amorphous silicon layer supported by two contact pads. For the design of focal plane mirror with geometrical flatness, the simple beam test structures were fabricated and characterized. As the beam length decreased, the effect of beam width on the bending was minimized, Mirror deformation of focal plane in a real pixel showed downward curvature by residual stress of a-Si and Ti layer. The mirror tilting was caused by the mis-align effect of contact pad and confirmed by FEA simulation results. The properties of bolometer have been measured as such that the NETD 145 mK, the TCR -2 %/K, and thermal time constant 1.99 ms.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.348-352
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• 2015

Thin nickel oxide films formed on uncooled and cooled $SiO_2/Si$ substrates using a radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputter powered by 200 W in a mixed atmosphere of argon and oxygen. Grazing-incidence X-ray diffraction and field emission scanning electron microscopy are used for the structural analysis of nickel oxide films. The electrical conductivity required for better bolometric performance is estimated by means of a four-point probe system. Columnar and (200) preferred orientations are discovered in both films regardless of substrate cooling. Electric resistivity, however, is greatly influenced by the substrate cooling. Oxygen partial pressure increase during the nickel oxide deposition leads to a rapid decrease in resistivity, and the resistivity is higher in the cooled nickel oxide samples. Even when small microstructure variations are applied, lower resistivity in favor of low noise performance is acquired in the uncooled samples.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.119-122
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• 2009

As infrared light radiates, the CMOS Readout IC (ROIC) for the microbolometer typed infrared sensor detects voltage or current which is caused by the variation of resistance in the bolometer sensor. A serious problem we may have in designing the ROIC is the value of bolometer and reference resistors will be changed due to process variation. Since each pixel does not have the same value of resistance, fixed pattern noise problems happen during the sensor operations. In this paper, we propose a novel technique to compensate the fluctuation of reference resistance with taking account of process variation. By using a comparator and a cross coupled latch, we will make the value of reference resistor same as the bolometer's.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.859-864
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• 2000

Recently IR detecting devices using MEMS have been actively studied. Microbolometer, one of these devices, detects the change of resistivity as the change of temperature of the device by absorbing IR, IR absorbing materials for microbolometer should have high TCR value and low noise characteristics which depends on resistivity. We fabricated multi-layer VOx thin films to improve the IR detectivity of uncooled IR devices and analyzed IR absorbing characteristics. We fabricated multi-layer VOx thin films by RF reactive sputtering method on SiNx substrate and changed characteristics using the different thickness of V and V$_2$O$\_$5/ thin films. Then we annealed them under 300$\^{C}$. The TCR (Temperature Coefficient of Resistance) measurement was carried out to estimate the IR detectivity of multi-layer VOx thin films. XRD (X-Ray Diffraction) analysis was carried out to estimate the IR detectivity of multi-layer VOx thin films. ZXRD (X-Ray Diffraction) analysis was used to find out phases and structures of V and V$_2$O$\_$5/ thin films. AES (Auger Electron Spectroscopy) analysis was used to find out composition of multi-layer VOx thin films before and after annealing. We obtained the optimum thickness range of V and V$_2$O$\_$5/ thin films from the result of AES analysis. We changed the thickness of V$_2$O$\_$5/ about 20 to 150 $\AA$ and thickness of V about 10 to 20 $\AA$. As the result of this, TCR value of multi-layer VOx thin films was about -2%/k and the resistivity was ∼1Ωcm.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.27 no.12
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• pp.809-814
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• 2014

Spinel thin films were prepared by the spin spray technique to develop new thermal imaging materials annealed at low temperature for uncooled microbolometer applications. The spinel thin films were deposited from $[(Ni_{0.30}Co_{0.33}Mn_{0.37})_{1-x}Cu_x]_3O_4$ ($0.1{\leq}x{\leq}0.2$) solutions and then annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ for 1 h in argon. Effects of Cu content (x) and deposition time on the electrical properties of the annealed films were investigated. With increasing deposition time, the resistivity of the annealed films increased. For the annealed films deposited for 1 min, the resistivity of x=0.15 films was lower than that of x=0.1 films due to the different grain sizes. The high temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of the annealed films could be obtained at temperature below $50^{\circ}C$. Typically, the resistivity of $127{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$ and TCR of -5.69%/K at $30^{\circ}C$ were obtained for x=0.1 films with deposition time of 1 min annealed at $400^{\circ}C$ for 1 h in argon.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.41-46
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• 2019

In order to develop novel thermal imaging materials for microbolometer applications, $[(Ni_{0.3}Mn_{0.7})_{1-x}Cu_x]_3O_4$ ($0.18{\leq}x{\leq}0.26$) thin films were fabricated using metal-organic decomposition. Effects of Cu content on the electrical properties of the annealed films were investigated. Spinel thin films with a thickness of approximately 100 nm were obtained from the $[(Ni_{0.3}Mn_{0.7})_{1-x}Cu_x]_3O_4$ films annealed at $380^{\circ}C$ for five hours. The resistivity (${\rho}$) of the annealed films was analyzed with respect to the small polaron hopping model. Based on the $Mn^{3+}/Mn^{4+}$ ratio values obtained through x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, the hopping mechanism between $Mn^{3+}$ and $Mn^{4+}$ cations discussed in the proposed study. The effects of $Cu^+$ and $Cu^{2+}$ cations on the hopping mechanism is also discussed. Obtained results indicate that $[(Ni_{0.3}Mn_{0.7})_{1-x}Cu_x]_3O_4$ thin films with low temperature annealing and superior electrical properties (${\rho}{\leq}54.83{\Omega}{\cdot}cm$, temperature coefficient of resistance > -2.62%/K) can be effectively employed in applications involving complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) integrated microbolometer devices.

• Proceedings of the Materials Research Society of Korea Conference
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.125-125
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• 2005

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.306-310
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• 2018

In order to develop a highly sensitive infrared sensor, it is necessary to develop techniques for decreasing the rate of heat absorption and the transition of the absorption wavelength to a longer wavelength, both of which can be induced by decreasing the pixel size of the bolometer. Therefore, in this study, $1{\mu}m$ hole-arrays with a subwavelength smaller than the incident infrared wavelength were formed on the amorphous silicon-based microbolometer pixels in the absorber, which consisted of a TiN absorption layer, an a-Si resistance layer and a SiNx membrane support layer. We demonstrated that it is possible to reduce the thermal time constant by 16% relative to the hole-patternless bolometer, and that it is possible to shift the absorption peak to a shorter wavelength as well as increase absorption in the $4-8{\mu}m$ band to compensate for the infrared long-wavelength transition. These results demonstrate the potential for a new approach to improve the performance of high-resolution microbolometers.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.222-229
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• 2009

A noble infrared sensor was studied for passenger conditional detection in vehicle, This research relates to uncooled infrared sensors for detecting the presence, type and temperature of occupants in vehicle. It sense that the occupants purpose to control the smart airbag for safety in the case of adult or child and to control the automatic air conditioning for convenience. This paper described the design and the fabrication of microbolometers which were composed of 2 by 8 elements using the surface micromachining technology. The characteristics of the array were investigated in the spectral region of $8{\sim}12{\mu}m$. The fabricated detectors exhibited the thermal mass of $7.05{\times}10^{-9}\;J/K$, the thermal conductance of $1.03{\times}10^{-6}\;W/K$, the thermal time constant of 6.8 ms, the responsivity of $2.96{\times}10^4\;V/W$ and the detectivity of $1.01{\times}10^9\;cmHz^{1/2}/W$, at the chopper frequency of 10 Hz and the bias current of $4.4{\mu}A$. We could successfully detect the human body condition in the divided zone. As a results, we concluded that microbolometer optimized in this research could be useful for the application of passenger conditional detection in vehicle.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.301-306
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• 2009

This paper describes the design and fabrication of 16$\times$16 microbolometer infrared focal plane arrays based on iMEMS technology. Amorphous silicon was used for infrared-sensitive material, and it showed the resistance of 18 Mohm and the temperature coefficient of resistivity of -2.4 %. The fabricated sensors exhibited responsivity of 78 kV/W and thermal time constant of 8.0 msec at a bias voltage of 0.5 V. The array performances had satisfactory uniformity less than 5 % within one-sigma. Also, 1/f noise of pixel was measured and the noise factor of $6\times10^{-11}$ was extracted. Finally, we obtained detectivity of $1.27\times10^9cmHz^{0.5}/W$ and noise equivalent temperature difference of 200 mK at a frame rate of 30 Hz.