Suspended epitaxial YBaCuO microbolometers fabricated by silicon micromachining: Modeling and measurements

Suspended epitaxial YBaCuO microbolometers were successfully fabricated by two silicon micromachining techniques. The first one used the reactive ion etching (RIE) of Si substrates and the second one the etching of the SiO2 layer in separated by implanted oxygen (SIMOX) substrates. This work aims at the modeling and the measurement of the bolometric performances of IR pixels (100×100 μm2 detection area) constituted by suspended bridges in series. The influence of both the dimensions and the thermophysical properties of the materials constituting the membrane is discussed. Thermal conductances and time constants were measured as functions of the length and the width of different suspended bridges fabricated by RIE. Comparison of a “RIE type” bridge with a bridge of same dimensions fabricated from a SIMOX substrate shows that the sensitivity-bandwidth product of the SIMOX bridge is improved by one order of magnitude. All measurements on suspended bridges are consistent with calculations from thermal model. The specific detectivity D* of a 4-μm-wide suspended meander line, measured at 85 K under irradiation from a blackbody, is 2.5×109 cmHz/W, with a thermal time constant of 564 μs. These performances are among the best reported for YBaCuO microbolometers.