Analytical tool for electro-thermal modelling of microbolometers

Abstract

In this paper we present a tool which incorporates an analytical model of a microbolometer. Within the tool the user can freely change the input parameters such as dimensions and material properties and immediately obtain output parameters such as responsivity, thermal time constant etc. Moreover, the tool can be used to compute the transient thermal response of the microbolometer for a given radiation power and bias current. The model was validated against the results obtained from ANSYS for several different devices and the maximal relative error in transient temperature response was found to be only 3%.