Sensitivity Enhancement in Resonant Microbolometers with Dual Mode Operation

Abstract

This study proposes a novel “vibration amplitude” based sensitivity enhancement method for a resonant-plate microbolometer, which operates in two different mode shapes simultaneously (dual-mode). Thanks to nonlinear cross-coupling between the two resonant modes, the proposed method boosts up the sensitivity of the second operational mode by 25.6% compared to conventional amplitude-based sensing.