Investigated performance of uncooled tantalum-doped VOx floating-type microbolometers

Various tantalum (Ta)-doped vanadium oxide (VOx:Ta) films with various Ta doping contents were deposited on the Si substrates as the sensitive layer of the floating-type microbolometers using a magnetron radio frequency (RF) co-sputtering system. The vanadium (V) target and the tantalum pentoxide (Ta2O5) target were used to deposit the VOx:Ta films. To improve the microbolometer responsivity by effectively reducing the thermal loss from the Si substrates, the floating-type microbolometers were fabricated using bulk micromachining technique. From the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) spectra, except the V2O5 and V6O13, the lower oxygen state of VOx films, such as VO2 and V2O3, were also obtained by doping Ta into the VOx films. Consequently, compared with the VO2 microbolometers, the VOx:Ta microbolometers could operate at a higher operating temperature range. The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) and the resistivity of the VOx:Ta (Ta content of 7.63%) films measured by four point probe measurement in heating system were −3.47%/K and 9.32 Ω-cm, respectively. The Ta-doped VOx microbolometer revealed a higher responsivity of 341 kV/W compared with 106 kV/W of the undoped VOx microbolometer.