A novel opto-mechanical uncooled infrared detector

This paper presents a novel opto-mechanical uncooled infrared detector that has successfully been fabricated. The detector is composed of a bi-material micro-cantilever array released from the Si substrate, whose reflector retains its shape even with changes in temperature. In comparison with the generally used sacrificial layer cantilever, the loss of incident IR energy caused by the reflection from and absorption by the silicon substrate is eliminated in this substrate-free structure. Moreover, the freestanding structure of the detector makes it easy to fabricate. The revised reflector in this structure has no distortion during its activity that keeps the sensitivity of the detector from being passivated. We present an infrared (IR) image of a person’s hand to demonstrate the ability of the structure to create images. The performance test showed that the noise-equivalent temperature difference of the imaging system can reach about 175 mK.