High Responsivity Thermopile Sensors Featuring a Mosaic Structure

This paper presents a detailed analysis of a micromachined thermopile detector featuring high responsivity and a versatile mosaic structure, based on 128 60 mu m x 60 mu m pixels connected in series and/or in parallel. The mosaic structure is based on the one employed for the thermal sensor known as TMOS, which consists of a CMOS-SOI transistor embedded in a suspended and thermally isolated absorbing membrane, released through microelectro mechanical system (MEMS) postprocessing. Two versions of the thermopile detector, featuring different series/parallel connections, are presented and were experimentally characterized. The most performant of the two achieved 2.7 x 10(4) V/W responsivity. The thermopile sensors' performances are compared to that of the TMOS sensor, adopting different configurations, and their application as proximity detectors was verified through measurements.

Automated summary

This paper presents a detailed analysis of a micromachined thermopile detector with high responsivity and a versatile mosaic structure. Two versions of the detector, featuring different series/parallel connections, were characterized and compared to other sensors. The application of these detectors as proximity detectors was verified.