IR detection with uncooled sensors

The emergence Of uncooled detectors has opened new opportunities for IR detection for both military and commercial applications. Development of such devices :involves a lot of trade-offs between the different parameters that define the technological stack. These trade-offs explain the number of different architectures that,are under worldwide development. The Laboratoire d'Electronique, de Technologies et d'Information (LETI) and ULIS have chosen to develop uncooled infrared sensor using a silicon technology. This silicon approach has the greatest potential for reducing infrared detector manufacturing cost. LETI and ULIS are now working to facilitate the infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) integration into equipment in order to address a very large market. Achievement of this goal needs the development of smart sensors with on-chip advanced functions and the decrease of manufacturing cost of IRFPA by decreasing the pixel pitch and simplifying the vacuum package. We present in this paper the new designs for readout circuit and packages that will be used for 384 x 288 and 160 x 120 arrays with a pitch of 35 mum and advanced results on 35 mum pixel pitch arrays. Thermographic application needs high stability infrared detector with a precise determination of the amount:of absorbed infrared flux. Hence, infrared detector with internal temperature stabilized shield has been developed and characterized. The results will be presented. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.