Study of Microstructural and Electrical Properties of the (P)A-Si : H/(N)C-Si Heterojunction: Uncooled Microbolometer Application

Recently, outstanding achievements have been made in the development of a novel class of uncooled microbolometer infrared (IR) focal plane arrays (FPAs), the ones based on Si diodes as temperature sensors [1-2]. The previous achievements in this field [1-4], stimulates the search for simple complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) compatible technological solutions based on diode bolometers which would be suitable for mass production of IR FPAs with adequate performance for many civilian applications [4]. Indeed, to achieve high temperature resolution, the thermodiode must have a high temperature sensitivity and a linear dependence of the output over a wide temperature range.