Pyroelectric MWIR Detector in CMOS Process

Infineon, Carinthian Tech Research, and Johannes Kepler University, Austria, publish MDPI paper "A CMOS Compatible Pyroelectric Mid-Infrared Detector Based on Aluminium Nitride" by Christian Ranacher, Cristina Consani, Andreas Tortschanoff, Lukas Rauter, Dominik Holzmann, Clement Fleury, Gerald Stocker, Andrea Fant, Herbert Schaunig, Peter Irsigler, Thomas Grille, and Bernhard Jakoby.

"In this work, we present a CMOS compatible pyroelectric detector which was devised as a mid-infrared detector, comprising aluminium nitride (AlN) as the pyroelectric material and fabricated using semiconductor mass fabrication processes. To ensure thermal decoupling of the detector, the detectors are realized on a Si3N4/SiO2 membrane. The detectors have been tested at a wavelength close to the CO2 absorption region in the mid-infrared. Devices with various detector and membrane sizes were fabricated and the influence of these dimensions on the performance was investigated. The noise equivalent power of the first demonstrator devices connected to a readout circuit was measured to be as low as 5.3×10e−9 W/sqrt(Hz)."