Uncooled microbolometer mosaic focal plane arrays for the infrared and terahertz ranges

Abstract

Mosaic focal plane arrays (MFPAs) have been designed, and a number of addressing schemes reducing the blind zone have been proposed. A precision technology for fabricating MFPAs with a total size of the blind zone of not more than 30 μm has been developed. Certain systemic issues of applying MFPAs are discussed. The designed 3072 × 576 uncooled microbolometer MFPAs based on 384 × 288 submodules with a pixel pitch of 17–51 μm provide ∼99% image conversion efficiency in the infrared range and those with a pixel pitch of 100 μm provide 100% image conversion efficiency in the terahertz range.