UNCOOLED THERMOPILE INFRARED DETECTOR LINEAR ARRAYS WITH DEFECTIVITY GREATER THAN 10 cmHzln/W

We have fabricated 63-element linear arrays of rnicromachined thermopile infrared detectors on silicon substrates. Each detector consists of a suspended silicon nitride membrane with 11 thermocouples of sputtered Bi-Te and Bi-Sb-Te films. At room temperature these detectors exhibit response times of 99 ms, zero frequency D* values of 1.4x109 cmHz’n/W and responsivity values of 1100 V/W when viewing a 1000 K blackbody source. The only measured source of noise above 20 mHz is Johnson noise from the detector resistance. These results represent the best performance reparted to date for an array of thermopile detectors. A test procedure is clescribed that measures many of the relevant electrical, optical, and thermal properties of the detectors without specialized test structures. Corresponding author: Marc C. Foote, MS 302-231, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, (8 18) 354-9009, FAX (8 18) 393-4540, cmail mare.c.footc@~jpl.nasa.gov This work was sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Office of Space Science.