Towards an infrared camera based on polymorphous silicon-germanium microbolometer arrays

Abstract

In this work we report the development of different parts of an infrared camera, which includes the fabrication of a microbolometer array based on polymorphous silicon-germanium thermosensing films (pm-SiGe:H) with large values of the Thermal coefficient of resistance (TCR), as large as −6.6 %/K. The array is composed of 4800 pixels, distributed as 80 × 60, with each pixels of size of 50 × 50 μm2. As well the first stages of the readout circuit based on a FPGA is described, and the infrared filters lens design and the vacuum camera design also are shown.