Thermal-mechanical Detector Array with Integrated Diffraction Grating

Abstract

An uncooled thermal detector array with low NETD is designed and fabricated using MEMS bimaterial structures. A diffraction grating is embedded on the pixel membrane for sensing sub-nm mechanical deflections. The first order reflected light was focused on a CCD camera to monitor the entire array. Results show that it is possible to achieve < 50mK NETD using a 12 bit CCD camera.