Fabrication and characterization of suspended La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 nanofibers for high-sensitive and fast-responsive infrared bolometer

La1-xSrxMnO3 manganite oxides have shown great potential for infrared (IR) sensing. In this study, La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) nanofibers, synthesized by a simple electrospinning process, are suspended between gold interdigitated electrode (IDE). These electrodes, which acts as a supporting platform for the dangling nanofiber, are microelectromechanical systems based that can be fabricated quickly and economically with fewer fabrication steps. Due to the large surface-area-to-volume ratio, these fibers have outstanding thermo-electrical properties, which puts them in the leagues of materials suitable for IR sensing. Performance-wise these hanging nanofibers belong to a class of promising thermal sensors due to negligible thermal loss. The optoelectrical characterization shows its temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) is -1.48%K-1, and its electrical resistance follows an inverse square law for distance from the IR source. The fabricated LSMO nanofibers based microbolometer has a significantly low thermal time constant with average thermal response and recovery time of 63 ms and 77 ms, respectively. Furthermore, they show encouraging bolometric properties with thermal conductance, thermal capacitance, voltage responsivity, and thermal noise limited detectivity of 3.6 x 10(-3)WK(-1), 0.2268 x 10(-3)JK(-1), 1.96 x 10(5)VW(-1), and 3.7 x 10(8)cm Hz(1/2)W(-1) respectively. The high voltage responsivity and TCR, commensurate with the ultralow response and recovery time confirm that the fabricated Microbolometer can find industrial applications as thermal sensors.

Automated summary

La1-xSrxMnO3 manganite oxides have great potential for infrared sensing. The La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 nanofibers synthesized by electrospinning process and suspended between gold interdigitated electrodes show outstanding thermo-electrical properties suitable for IR sensing. The fabricated LSMO nanofibers based microbolometer has a significantly low thermal time constant and exhibits high voltage responsivity, confirming its potential as industrial thermal sensors.