Design and thermal analysis of electrically calibrated pyroelectric detector

A finite element model was set up by ANSYS to optimize the structure of an electrically calibrated detector and simulate the thermal diffusivity. High-performance relaxor-based ferroelectric crystals were selected as the detector materials. Gold-black was selected as the black coating on the surface of the calibrated pyroelectric detector. The finite element model was set up by ANSYS and the geometry model was meshed appropriately. The optimized structure stood out from the several feasible structures. The simulation results showed that the differences of ΔT on the top surface of PMN-PT crystal between radiant and electrical heating decrease with the increase of sensitive area. The sensitive area of the detector is 10 mm × 10 mm and the entrance aperture is ∅ 8 mm. In this condition, the differences of ΔT are 1.20%. An electrically calibrated pyroelectric detector was fabricated according to the simulation results.

► Finite element analysis is used to simulate the temperature field of detectors.
► The simulation results optimize the structure of the detector.
► A new relaxor-based ferroelectric crystal was selected as the detector material.
► An electrically calibrated pyroelectric detector was fabricated according to the simulation results.